I am currently reading Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". In Volume 1, he describes - from a high level - the daily discipline and activites of a Roman legion, the recruitment etc. etc. Although as a former professional soldier I am already acquainted with Roman military history, I have never seen a film or animation that is more or less widely accepted viz. canonical, and depicting what a fully deployed, post-Marian reform Roman legion acies must have looked. The only thing I know is that, for sure, it must have been a formidable sight. Gibbon gives a rather abstract description of the battle order:
"Besides their arms, which the legionaries scarcely considered as an encumbrance, they were laden with their kitchen furniture, the instruments of fortification, and the provision of many days. Under this weight, which would oppress the delicacy of a modern soldier, they were trained by a regular step to advance, in about six hours, near twenty miles. On the appearance of an enemy, they threw aside their baggage, and by easy and rapid evolutions converted the column of march into an order of battle. The slingers and archers skirmished in the front; the auxiliaries formed the first line, and were seconded or sustained by the strength of the legions; the cavalry covered the flanks, and the military engines were placed in the rear."
(Gibbon, "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", Vol. 1, Chapter 1 part III).
Hence, my question: any visual resources ? I am specifically after what an enemy commander would see, briefly before engaging a Roman legion on the battlefield. I mean: as seen through human eyes, on the battlefield, by someone facing a Roman legion, not a drawing or schematic.
PS I am not referring to the "small" legion of the Western Roman empire, but to the "classical" legion of 5000-6000 men