Battle Preliminary

[Vibius Tiberius Costa]

Wouldn't this distract both armies. It would distract me. This wouldn't work anyway. Very obscure, I'll try and see if it did happen, it's not on a wiki-site.

 

vtc

[Diocles]

I've never heard of this custom from any ancient or contemporary source regarding the Roman Legions. While I could see this being done by the Gallic cultures as a kind of inspiration for morale, reminder of what you're fighting for, maybe even as a reward for whoever's first over a wall, but I've never heard anything like this being done with the Romans. The fear of your centurion whipping you with his vītis was inspiration enough to fight.

 

This sounds like it might be a myth/legend that someone took as fact and reported as truth.

[Ingsoc]

The closest thing I was able to find is Suetonius mention Caligula wife Caesonia:

 

"Though Caesonia was neither beautiful nor young, and was already mother of three daughters by another, besides being a woman of reckless extravagance and wantonness, he loved her not only more passionately but more faithfully, often exhibiting her to the soldiers riding by his side" (Suetonius, The Lives of the Caesars, The Life of Caligula, 25)

[Marcus_Aurelius]

It's disinformation.Romans never brought Roman women to war, the "younger and passionate" soldiers had prostitutes for entertaining.If I were a Roman general I would have never agreed with bringing a woman born to Roman parents on the battlefront because she might have attracted bad luck.However I think that Nero or Caligula might have done that, but in the times of the Five Good Emperors or of the Republic, when traditions were respected, nobody even thought of doing such a disgraceful thing.It was tabu.