Roman Demarcation

[Froggy the Great]

I've googled this and it was like drinking from the firehose - Is there a consensus on what time periods/equipment constitute Republican, Late Republican, Early Imperial, Late Imperial Romans etc?

I picked up Early Imperial because that's what was available and cheap.  Now I have Greek Hoplites, and if I was going straight Historical (I'm not) I would be really confused about who could reasonably be fighting whom.

[Westfalia Chris]

If we go by what the ranges commonly include equipment-wise, it usually goes like this -

Republican - 3rd century BC to ca. 130 BC, focusing on the Punic Wars and including the conquest of the Iberian peninsula.

Late Republican - late 2nd century BC to the reign of Augustus (30BC-14AD), with a focus on Caesar's conquests and the following civil wars from 49 to 31 BC.

Early Imperial - equipment-wise, from the first half of the first century AD to the first half of the third century AD (roughly, reign of Tiberius to the death of Septimius Severus).

"Middle Imperial" - third century AD, to my knowledge.

Late Imperial - following the reign of Diocletian to the fall of the Roman Empire in the west.

None of the above would work against "proper" Greek hoplites, as the hoplite system is commonly assumed to be superceded by the Macedonian-style phalanx in the 4th century AD. If you would want to recreate battles against the Greek city states of the Magna Graecia, this would be a very early phase with the Romans fitted out very similar to Greek hoplites, with some stylistic differences. Maybe mix in some "Republican" or "Camillan" Roman or Italic types for variety.

[Froggy the Great]

Thank you!  That is quite helpful.

My plan at the moment, therefore, is to buy the figures I like and shoehorn them into the Hyborean nations from the Conan stories.  I believe that's what R.E.H. did when creating them, after all.

[Froggy the Great]

Into what period would "Caesarean" Roman figures fit?

[former user]

here is a not to overloaded accurate hobby-related link
http://www.fanaticus.org/DBA/armies/II56/

the problem with the imperial chronology is that there is an archaeological chronology and a historical chronology which can be confusing from time to time 

Anyway - "middle imperial roman" is not so well evidenced in terms of archaeological remains.

All depends on how accurate you want to go into it.
Caesarian legionaires could work well into the reign of Tiberius, depending on how the miniatures are sculpted.
Accurately they fall into "late republican"

here is a very accurate chronology, which unfortunately I can't provide in english as a link

http://www.altertum.uni-rostock.de/fileadmin/Altertum/dateien/archaeologie/Einf_FChrungEpochen.pdf

[thebinmann]

Sorry I am of no help here, but

it was like drinking from the firehose

Nice idiom, is that Froggy Idiom or an American one?

Cheers

[Westfalia Chris]

Into what period would "Caesarean" Roman figures fit?

As former user correctly pointed out, the various "Caesarean" ranges would work well into the early 1st century AD, starting from around 100BC, which is a popular dating point for the various military reforms attributed to Marius.


Personally, I think that Caesarean Romans would give you a broad historical period while not having too many stylistic elements that scream "ROMANS!" the moment you see them; so they could convincingly work in a fantasy setting, particularly the "lowtech" Howard ones.

[Froggy the Great]

The idiom is from the movie UHF.
What I have is a large Early Imperial Roman force from Warlord.

[Westfalia Chris]

The idiom is from the movie UHF.
What I have is a large Early Imperial Roman force from Warlord.

Those are probably rather recognisable, but if you're happy with them, go ahead.

Historically, those would best be used for the conquest of Britain (40s AD) and the subsequent revolt(s), as well as the Judean war of the 60s and the civil war following Nero's death. Subsequently, border wars in Germania come to mind, as do the larger-scale campaigns of Trajan and Hadrian along the Danube. Following that, the Marcomanni wars (of some loose fame from the opening of "Gladiator") and the civil war after Commodus' death are a suitable setting, and reasonably the first half of the 3rd century.

So, to put it like that, EIR gives you a wide historical spectrum ranging from ca. 9 AD (some parts of the lamellar armour were found in Lower Saxony on a site purported to be the Teutoburg Forest battlefield and dated to that era) at the earliest to some 250 years later.

The main issue would be the historical opponents - barring a civil war, these would overwhelmingly feature "barbarians" of the "hairy horde" type (stereotypical, I know), since the major advanced mediterranean powers had been knocked out by 50BC. So no ordered hoplite armies, I'm afraid.

For fantasy, obviously, all bets are off.

[former user]

My plan at the moment, therefore, is to buy the figures I like and shoehorn them into the Hyborean nations from the Conan stories.  I believe that's what R.E.H. did when creating them, after all.

Hyperborea has a context long before REH
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperborea#Cultural_references

Anyway, if You simply want to use the cheap plastic antquity figures, be it romans or greeks or whatever, I don't quite understand why all this historical background is important at all. 

If on the other hand, you simply want to know for which periods you can use WG plastic "early imperial roman" figures, this is quite simple. here again a rather useful site
http://www.romancoins.info/VIC-Legions.html
The earliest archaeological record of the lamellar armour is from 9 BC, and it was used indeed for quite a long time, without wanted to start on the different types on record.
The helmets on the plastics show for the most part the "eyebrows" which are probably a stylistic import brought by Caesars gallic veterans, originally found on gallic Agen/Port type helmets, probably applied by gallic craftsmen and later copied (as well as the rippled neck), but this feature gradually disappears after 69 AD, and is contradictory to the reinforced crossbars on the skull that are thought to have been introduced with the dacian wars at the beginning of 2nd C AD (and were retrofitted to older types). Same goes for the rather horizontal neckguard on the plastics, that became more downsloping and larger through the ages.

In short, the "early imperial roman"  tag is to be taken very literally here, 31 BC - 69 AD, the sculptors obviously did their homework. 
A little bit of interpretative leeway is very acceptable up and down of course 


All this translated to the 19th C: if You want to use napoleonic uniforms in a VSF/Fantasy setting, go ahead and pick whatever You like. But don't be surprised if stovepipe shakos look strange in a historical Boer War setting.....