Roman army basic training in 6th century

Continuing in the best Greco-Roman training traditions, soldiers from the mid-6th century, under the supervision of Campidoctor, wrestle in duels with wooden, dulled substitute weapons (...real ones were also used in training but in more advanced stages of training).Source from the reign of Justinian I. gives two completely unique details that are otherwise completely absent elsewhere:The training weapons were green and were dipped in red dye during practice duels.Why they were green is not explained, but the function of the red dye is clearly stated-it was to clearly identify how skilled each recruit was in delivering effective blows to his opponent, and also to show how he was doing in his own self-defense.
The information is given in a theoretical essay where two fictional 6th century Romans discuss the nature of ideal government in an implicit but fairly clear critique of the imperial regime(and probably specifically Justinian himself) while also getting into the question of the military by referring to ancient Greek and Latin authors(including Cicero for example). In addition to the detail of green-coloured training weapons and red dye, they also mention all the other traditional training practices that are otherwise attested by many other authors, suggesting that the practice uniquely mentioned in this essay may also have been quite real and also adopted from older sources.Unfortunately, there is only one surviving reference to it, so it should be taken with a grain of salt.
Despite the popular notion that the Roman army of this time was poorly trained or even not trained at all, basic training continued to be no different from that of the time of Julius Caesar or Trajan.Soldiers, for example, continued to undergo practice duels with wooden swords or clubs for many centuries after Justinian (it is documented as part of basic training in the Roman army until the 10th century).
In order to avoid serious injuries, spears, javelins and arrows without points and also the so-called "wooden swords" were largely used in the exercises. Despite the fact that modernly these training tools are commonly depicted in the shape of real swords (including this illustration) and many modern translations even automatically translate terms for them as "wooden sword", no ancient or medieval source explicitly states that the training instruments copied the shape of a real sword. The terms that Greek and Latin writers do use for it can literally be translated as "stave","rod", "staff", "singlestick" and so on.Vegetius claims that it weighed twice as much as the real sword so that later soldiers found the use of the real sword easier.
Despite this, it is very likely that training substitutes probably sometimes took the form of real swords, although the range probably varied from simple staves to wooden replica swords. This is particularly suggested by the discovery of a wooden sword(in the shape of a real sword though atypically shaped and in appearance not so far from a cane only slightly stylized into a sword) in the moat of a legionary fortress in Oberaden, Germany,almost certainly a former training sword.Several wooden swords have been recovered from British Vindolanda so far. In at least two cases, they were probably just children's toys due to their size and weight.Anyway, these toys were clearly inspired by the shape of real Roman swords, which shows that even army (and gladiatorial) training staffs may well have sometimes had the same shape as real swords. The difficulties of translation and the ambiguity as to what the ancient author had in mind have also left us with the possibility that some training swords (or real ones?) may have been fitted with a leather covering on the blade for safety reasons.Despite the fact that wood was used as a material, injuries still occurred on the training ground.
The practice of mock battles and battles goes deep into the past, and the earliest mention of it is preserved in Xenophon who attributes it to the Achaemenid Persian army-specifically to an unknown squad leader whose method of training was noticed by the great King Cyrus I and the practice so impressed him that he made it the norm for the entire Persian army. Among other benefits, Cyrus is said to have been impressed by the fact that the soldiers learned and had fun at the same time.Xenophon's testimony is probably of semi-legendary character, but whether or not the Persians were really the first to adopt it, it was certainly a real practice that Xenophon likely observed from real life somewhere.
In the Roman army, this method of training is first attested at the end of the Second Punic War, which also represents the first unequivocal historical mention of it. Scipio Africanus then subjected the army to a strict training regime, where for the first time there is even a mention of blunt training weapons, including wooden "swords" (which, however, as mentioned above, are not really explicitly mentioned as swords).