Rome did not teach its own men to shoot. The archers of the imperial army came from places that already had the skill, and the clearest case is a Syrian one — the First Cohort of Hamian Archers, raised at Hama on the Orontes, about a hundred and ten miles north of Damascus, in country Rome had taken in 64 BC. They appear in Britain under Hadrian in 122, garrison Carvoran and Housesteads on the Wall, move north to Bar Hill on the Antonine Wall around 158, and are back at Housesteads by 163: Syrians spending their careers in wet Northumberland because the army wanted men who had grown up with a bow. The usual version of that story then takes one step too far. From the reign of Augustus, Romans and Italians were levied as dedicated archers as well. The craft was imported; the recruiting was never restricted to the importers — which is how a man in Roman mail and a Roman helmet comes to be standing in a Roman street with a composite bow in his hands.

A relief dug up at Housesteads in 1822 shows one of those Hamians with five things: a composite bow, a short tunic, a conical helmet, a quiver and a dagger. This figure has all five. He wears a mail shirt over a long-sleeved white tunic with a dark patterned hem, purple leggings beneath it and open laced boots; the gilt helmet has hinged cheek pieces, the quiver rides on his hip on a red cord, and a decorated hilt shows at his belt. The bow is painted bone-white, which is the right instinct — composite bows were tipped with bone, built up from horn and sinew over a wooden core, and nothing about them resembled a stave cut from a hedge. He is not drawing. The arrow is in his hand and not yet on the string, which is what the title means by preparing. For a diorama he belongs behind the heavy infantry rather than in front of it — set him up behind Standing Roman Legion Throwing Pilum and he is shooting over the line, which is where Roman foot archers actually stood. Praetorian Archer Aiming High is the next man along in the same shooting line, Roman Auxiliary Saluting is the wider world of provincial specialists this bow came out of, and The Ballista Command Set is the army's other missile arm — the same job done by torsion instead of muscle.

Model: ROM098 / King & Country / 1/30 (60mm) scale / matte finish / 1 piece set