The hunt for a Late Imperial Roman shield pattern

back when I war gamed with 25mm Hinchcliffes I bought a copy of 'What the Soldiers wore on Hadrian's Wall' from lovely little bookshop on The Shambles in York.  Long gone now of course as online book stores have conquered most of the world.  The book was written by H Russell Robinson and illustrated by Ronald Embleton.  

A classic and still worth a read

It has some lovely colour plates including this one which was Late Imperial Roman period.  As a modeller the thing which grabbed my attention was the nice simple shield pattern and a British association to boot! The booklet only describes the carriers as Roman soldiers of the 4th Century.

It's the shield that grabbed my attention.

The same pattern (albeit the other way up) crops up again in the Osprey Men at Arms title 'The Roman Army from Hadrian to Constantine' again illustrated by Ronald Embleton.

It's that shield again

The same shield (perhaps) this time described as Infantrymen c. 300 - 400AD.  There is still no identification of the unit or where the design comes from.  It's not in the Notitia Dignitatum and the Osprey simply states the design is associated with infantry of the period in the sketches...of H Russell Robinson.  

I hunted but could find no source for the shield but it was a nice simple design pattern to pain and one of my Hinchcliffe legions received it.  Since then I have reproduced the shield on 6mm Late Imperial Romans from irregular miniatures and am currently re doing that unit using Baccus 6mm figures.  However, in the 30 odd years since putting brush to 25mm Hinchcliffe legionary I had never found any original source for the design or even anything close.

Then in one of those little side expeditions we all tend to take when looking something up on Google I found this.  It comes from this really useful site http://lukeuedasarson.com/NotitiaPatterns.html in the section discussing the authenticity of the illustrations in the Notitia.  In a link to an article on Roman Shield patterns of the 3rd Century I spotted this which is from Piazza-Amerina Mosaics a set of 4th Century hunting scenes.

At last I found a source

I still can't tie it back to an actual military unit but at least I have a clear example of the basic design.  some times Google really does come good.