Sinister Romans

[Formosus Viriustus]

This may be relevant - its from Livy 24.15 and involves Gracchus' slave soldiers fighting Hannibal. They have been offered a bounty for every enemy head they produce. (I've not had time to check the Latin to see if the 'right hand' is accurately translated.)

 

'Nothing hampered the Romans more than this setting a price upon the heads of their foes, the price of liberty, for no sooner had any one made a furious attack upon an enemy and killed him than he lost time in cutting off his head-a difficult matter in the tumult and turmoil of the battle-and then, as their right hands were occupied in holding the heads, all the best soldiers were no longer able to fight, and the battle was left to the slow and the timid. The military tribunes reported to their general that not a man of the enemy was being wounded as he stood, whilst those who had fallen were being butchered and the soldiers were carrying human heads in their right hands instead of swords.'

Thanks for the quote.

I'm not sure if we can conclude much from it about left-handedness. I think that the fact that all legionaries had to fight right-handed is in little or no doubt anymore if ever it was. I find Livy's description also a bit counterintuitive : as a right-handed soldier in the middle of a battlefield, I would hold onto my sword at all costs ; use it to chop off heads and carry the heads with my left hand.

It sounds to me more like a scene where the battle is already essentially won -- some enemy units still resisting or fighting a rearguard action -- and the victors failing to maximise their victory because of the trophy hunting and plundering. A rather common occurence, I think, at the time. In that case their might have been quite a few guys running around with both their hands holding heads.

But Livy is right in concluding that such a method of awarding individual prizes may seriously hamper the efficiency of your soldiers at fighting as a unit, even in the heat of the battle.

 

As for the handshake, I had actually heard the opposite: that the right-hand handshake was adopted specifically because it required one to lay down their weapons.