Legion preview - Legio II Italica Pia

Users who are viewing this thread

                                                                        Legio II Italica Pia

Together with III Italica, this unit was founded in 165 or 166 by the emperor Marcus Aurelius, who badly needed extra soldiers in his war against the Germanic Marcomanni . At that time, Marcus' brother and co-emperor Lucius Verus was fighting a war against the Parthian empire. To indicate that the legion was founded by both men, its emblem was the she-wolf with the legendary brethren Romulus and Remus. (In fact, a rather ironical choice, because Romulus killed his brother.)


In the third century, II Italica took part in Maximinus' wars in Dacia and in at least one campaign against the Visigoths. During the conflict between the emperor Gallienus and his rival Postumus, the legion supported the first-mentioned, for which it was rewarded with surnames like Pia V Fidelis V ('five times faithful and loyal'), Pia VI Fidelis VI, and finally Pia VII Fidelis VII.






Standard legionary trooper:

ital7.jpg


ital6.jpg


ital5.jpg


ital4.jpg


ital3.jpg


ital2.jpg


ital1.jpg


ital8.jpg



Source equipment inspiration courtesy Angus McBride:
reference1.jpg

reference2.jpg




 
Rhomphaia said:
So sorry to say but I am a Frankish warrior at heart.
Ah,i understand.Well,people make their own choices...
I can't wait to take up my gladius and make hordes of Roman legions.I will bring back the Roman might.  :cool:

:wink:
 
JankoMega said:
Rhomphaia said:
So sorry to say but I am a Frankish warrior at heart.
Ah,i understand.Well,people make their own choices...
I can't wait to take up my gladius and make hordes of Roman legions.I will bring back the Roman might.  :cool:

:wink:

Maybe we will clash in a MP battle some day, who knows. I am looking very forward to this mod and even more so for Hegemony. If I may ask, your proflie pic, are you in it and are you part of a combat study group?
 
Rhomphaia said:
JankoMega said:
Rhomphaia said:
So sorry to say but I am a Frankish warrior at heart.
Ah,i understand.Well,people make their own choices...
I can't wait to take up my gladius and make hordes of Roman legions.I will bring back the Roman might.  :cool:

:wink:

Maybe we will clash in a MP battle some day, who knows. I am looking very forward to this mod and even more so for Hegemony. If I may ask, your proflie pic, are you in it and are you part of a combat study group?
Hehe. :smile:
Of course,we will meet. :wink:  No,i'm not of course,got some other plans in life;i train basketball for 5 years now though..But anyways,i love the reenactors.
Those are Serbian knights from like end of 14th century,if you'd like to know.

Sorry for offtopic,ealabor.  :oops:
 
On the point about the 2 legionary in the first McBride reference pic, the dating was for 243 A.D., which wasn't too far off. The only thing  which seems off is the usage of gladius, where the latter end of the century seen more usage of spatha.

So for the answer, yes there would be some usage of segmentata, though I will reserve that for select troops since it's usage was greatly diminished for the period. Same goes for rectangular scutum.

I got a pm inquiry about that, but I wanted to state it here in case there were others to ask.

 
Great looking stuff mate. Remind me that I could send over some of the scale patterns I did that might work for your guys.
 
A few, actually. Scale Pattern A is the one I think you will have most use with, since it seems to resemble the roman scale that I've seen. You might be able to shrink B or D down to a very small size and have it reflect some of the scale I've also seen.

What I recommend is that you take the patterns I did and resize them down to 30-35%. That seemed to work best for me.

Sending it to you in a PM. The Materials are the base patterns, with separate rows and so on. The "Pattern" file are the ones where I've already tiled them to a very large dimension. If you want to tile them yourself you have to be careful to make sure everything overlaps right - some can tile just by putting them side by side, but especially in the 'top down' ones you have to make them overlap to -just- the right pixel. And in general the pattern one is less of a pain in the butt to work with.

 
ealabor said:
On the point about the 2 legionary in the first McBride reference pic, the dating was for 243 A.D., which wasn't too far off. The only thing  which seems off is the usage of gladius, where the latter end of the century seen more usage of spatha.

So for the answer, yes there would be some usage of segmentata, though I will reserve that for select troops since it's usage was greatly diminished for the period. Same goes for rectangular scutum.

I got a pm inquiry about that, but I wanted to state it here in case there were others to ask.
Thank You for answer,E. :wink:
 
There has been many debates on why the segmentata lost its favour. It was not much more expensive and far less labour constructive. The reason actually lies in the use of the offensive weapons. When u look at the segmentata u see the shoulder cops restricts the lifting of the arm above the head. I myseld experienced this in a reconstructed segmentata. So the use of a long slashing spatha would be ineffective when using segmentata. You see the same with the use of middle age 2handed sword styles such as the Italian and german styles. The evolution of the Gothic and Milanese armour u see the Famtag stanve change from the famtag proper with the sword held high abive the head to shoulder hight when plate mail replaced chain mail. Shoulder cops limit the use of longswords. It was not a problem with the gladius used for stabbing. Hamata (chain mail) and Squamata ( scale mail) however does not pose the same problem. I prefer the flexable hamata in my broadsword tournaments to plate mail for this exact reason. This is the reason for the dominating hamata and squamata.
 
Yeah I suppose that would be a contributing factor, and would make sense, as the spatha became the dominant infantry arm for the period.

You would have to imagine maintenance and equipping would be far favourable with hamata as well, and if we are to take Vegetius at his word about increasing lax amongst troop training and discipline which led up to his time, then that would paint a complete portrait as to why it fell out of favor.

Well, it explains reactionary causes anyways. The reasoning which lead to such causes seems to be, at least to Vegetius accounts, the rise of prominence of cavalry over infantry, in that infantry was no longer viewed as the main bulwark, which led to their neglegance, and subsequently the major cause of transition amongst equipment. I guess that should be expected considering lessons learned against the east and steppe peoples, though this transition in philosophy seems to have ultimately cost them the west.
 
It is very true that cavalry was starting to play an ever more important role on the battlefield, especially in the east. Hamata was actually more expensive to make that lorica and took longer as well. An interesting note that shoots many theories to bits on the transition based on economic factors.
 
Back
Top Bottom