Roman troops in combat, 1st century AD

In this illustration, we witness a rather desperate scene for these Roman legionaries, who have gathered around their centurion and their aquilifer to protect the legion’s eagle from possible capture by the enemy. This scene could depict any of the desperate battles fought by Roman legionaries in the 1st century, from the disaster at Teutoburg (although some of the equipment we see is slightly modern for that period) to the demise of Legio IX Hispana in Britain.
In the centre of the scene we see the centurion, wearing a feathered crest and clad in chainmail armour or lorica hamata, just like the legionaries on the right. Just to the right stands the aquilifer, the non-commissioned officer responsible for carrying the legion’s eagle standard, clad in lion skins. To his left, wearing a longitudinal crest with two feathers, we see the optio, the non-commissioned officer tasked with assisting the centurion on the flanks of the formation. The centurion, however, is protected by a plate armour or lorica segmentata, just like the two legionaries below him. As for the helmets, all the legionaries we see are wearing different variants of the Imperial Gallic-style helmet, with the exception of the legionary at the bottom left, who is wearing an Imperial Italic-style helmet, the future replacement for the Imperial Gallic-style helmets.