Every schoolkid “knows” what Roman soldiers looked like when they were equipped for battle. But what did a Byzantine soldier (of any era, from the first Constantine to the last) look like ?
Would a regular Byzantine infantryman (as opposed to a mercenary or auxiliary) have met the stereotype of a Roman soldier to a modern observer ? What about a contemporary western-European observer (I assume our image of what a roman soldier “should” look like is not a recent thing) ?
The Byzantine Empire lasted for nearly a thousand years after the western Roman Empire fell. Military dress changed dramatically in that period. Some details of troop types over that period here and text descriptions here. For pictures you really need the Ospey series of books, you could try the “Look Inside” function on their website:
http://www.ospreypublishing.com/store/Romano-Byzantine-Armies-4th–9th-Centuries_9781855322240
http://www.ospreypublishing.com/store/Byzantine-Armies-AD-1118–1461_9781855323476/
http://www.ospreypublishing.com/store/Byzantine-Infantryman_9781846031052/
http://www.ospreypublishing.com/store/Decline-and-Fall_9781846034022But they recruited soldiers and mercenaries from all over the Near East so there is hugely more variety than in the archetypal Roman Republican or Imperial army.
Askance has given the links, but the short answer here is no, the average Byzantine soldier was not typically “Roman”-looking. There was a heavy Eastern/Persian (ultimately Central Asian, I believe) influence on the empire’s armour towards lamellar rather than the maille that was becoming de rigeur in the West.
Also, Byzantium relied more on its heavy cavalry (Cataphracts, as any AoE player knows) than its infantry, which again reduces the similarities with legion-focused Rome.