Product Description

The Roman military was one of the most powerful forces of the ancient world. But what did its soldiers wear? This book presents an accurate and illuminating study of a popular yet understudied subject. Spanning 1000 years from the Late Republic to the Byzantine Empire, including every item from helmet linings to let wrappings, Graham Sumner presents an original and detailed interpretation of wide-ranging evidence, drawing on recent textile finds, ancient artwork and original literary sources from across the Roman Empire. With the help of informative illustrations, we understand how the garments were worn and by which soldiers, both on and off the battlefield. Materials used, methods of manufacture and dying, and the second-hand trade are also discussed. Including stunning colour images and reconstructions, this book will be of great value to students and re-enactors of the Romans, as well as costume and fashion students.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #88491 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Customer Reviews

Long awaited definitive study of the evidence for the clothing of the Roman Army
Sumner, G. (2009) Roman Military Dress, Stroud: The History Press

Roman Military Dress is exactly what I and many re-enactors have wanted for some time: an expanded synthesis of the research of the author who produced the Roman Military Clothing Osprey series, with new primary evidence, further examples, additional discussion, more illustrations and Sumner's own painted interpretations. It represents a significant improvement on those slimmer volumes for those with an academic viewpoint and, particularly, those re-enactors wishing to advance their period impressions based on a serious interrogation of the available data.

Although by necessity referring to much of the familiar evidence base, including several of the same illustrations, the new material is extensive and the discussion is at a deeper level, specifically addressing questions and arguments raised by the author's earlier works, which are more properly regarded as brief but colourful overviews for a general audience.

It is 224 pages long, plus 16 pages of colour photographs and beautiful illustrations in Sumner's characteristic style, including sixteen full length portraits of Roman soldiers, only two of which I have seen elsewhere. It has a foreword by the august John Peter Wild and is divided into three sections: 'tunics and cloaks' which covers the appearance, decoration and construction from Republican to Late Imperial times, 'the clothing industry' with a catalogue of the material, iconographic and literary evidence for military clothing colour up to the seventh century and 'other garments' which presents, amongst other things, fascinating new evidence on hats and helmet linings and a very sensible appraisal of the controversial subarmalis and thoracomachus.

This book represents the fruit of many years of study by a well respected author in the field. It is well written so as to be very readable for the non-academic whilst presenting a huge, and surely definitive, array of evidence. I believe 'Roman Military Dress' will become the new essential clothing guide for the period, destined to sit as comfortably next to Bishop and Coulston on the historian's shelf as on the re-enactor's sewing table.

Highly recommended


This is probably the best overall book yet released on Roman "soft kit", and expands Graham Sumner's earlier three books published by Osprey (Roman Military Clothing) , with new material and greater depth. 224 pages long, with numerous colour and black and white illustrations.

Its main headings are
-Tunics and Cloaks (Republican, early Imperial and Late Imperial)
-The Clothing industry and the colours of military clothing
-Other Garments (Headgear, hats and helmet linings; the waistband; subarmalis, thoracomachus and armour coverings;the scarf; trousers, socks, leg wrappings and bindings, gloves, undergarments, footwear, belts and the leather industry)

It is well written, with full sources, and as you would expect from a professional illustrator, the colour illustrations are excellent. I certainly recommend it, even if you already have the earlier Osprey books.

To give a few examples of items that were new to me, he pictures the Roman hat found at Didymoi- red in colour, with cheek guard shaped padding still surviving.

The subarmalis section is also very good, where he shows examples of subarmalis being worn without armour- very similar to the medieval practise of wearing an arming jack or gambeson as padded protection- presumably when armour was either not available or not affordable. This could be an interesting one to depict, and practically would certainly given more protection than simply wearing a tunic.

The tunic section is also very interesting. Helpfully, Sumner lists his sources, allowing people to make their own mind up.

Sumner's conclusion is that soldiers wore an offwhite tunic for everyday wear and fatigue duties. For military action, this was replaced by a red tunic in shades between salmon pink to a deep purple red. (This could be age and washing- for example, my older rugby shirts which were once scarlet are now salmon pink). On parades and religious festivals white tunics (probably specially whitened) were worn.

On cloaks, he concludes that yellow brown is the most popular for both paenulas and sagum cloaks, but off-white, red and blue are also fairly well represented.

Overall, then, highly recommended.

Very Impressive
Good value, Good content. reasonable artwork and better than expected photographs. Beats his Osprey offerings and offers a one stop shop for various types of enthusiast.