I've gone mad! Okay, okay, so you already knew that. But I've painted another unit of Aventine Republican Romans - Leves this time. They're rather plain-looking (which is why they were so quick to paint!). When I do the next unit, I'll do some Velites, which are a bit fancier, and then I'll mix the two together. What would improve things a lot would be if I could persuade Steve at Little Big Men Studios to make some transfers for the small round shields with designs to match the designs he's done for the large scuta, then it'd be easier to make the Leves/Velites 'match' the legion they belong to.
I had an interested response from Adrian Goldsworthy to a question I asked. Amongst other things I was wondering whether there was any evidence for the Leves of the early third century BC really being any different from the Velites of the later third century, based on a comment in Livy. Here is what he said:
"As usual, the real answer is that we don't know. Personally I am very suspicious of Livy's early legion, which does seem to owe an awful lot to the voting assembly of the first century rather than any military reality. The idea that velites got better equipped - i.e. proper shields and swords etc - during the Second Punic War largely comes down to one passage of Livy talking about 211BC and saying how they got the name velites. I suspect it is (1) quite possibly an Antiquarian invention, and (2) even if it is not an exaggeration based on a small incident I very much doubt any significant change in equipment occurred. I suspect that simply the light infantry got better as the war went on just as the rest of the army became more experienced. So I would see the early third century BC army as much the same in structure, tactics and equipment as the one of the Second Punic War and after. Average quality improved because of such intensive campaigning, but that's about it. Worth remembering the damage done by the velites to the Gaesati at Telamon in 225 in Polybius account."