reenactors

The earliest examples would probably be the Athenian Plays in which actors would act out scenes from Greek history. Many plays and transcripts survive to this day and a good amount of them are historical in nature.

full-scale battle re-enactment has been rather rare in antiquity as far as I know.

>>2738517
Probably, but not exactly, more like telling a story of what happened instead of actual reenacting

>>2738517
Every Europe/MENA nation 6th-18th century, trying to reenact Rome

Edward III held a jousting tournament to drum up support for another claim-the-throne-of-France war but made everyone LARP as someone from Arthurian legend. Kind of neat that late medieval knights had to roleplay as early medieval knights. I suppose it would be like a soldier in the American Civil War dressing up like a soldier from the American Revolutionary War and enlisting.

>>2738517
>what would be the earliest known case of "historical reenactors"
hastilude/pas d'armes in the 14th century

>>2738517

Roman gladiatorial reenactments of previous battles / greek theater most likely.

>>2738517

they often did stuff like that, but it was all theatrical spectacle stuff, historical accuracy neither mattered nor was possible, they did mythological representations the same way,and pagents and plays and so on

>>2740945
This
Gladiatorial fights and naumachias. It was literal reenactment tho, the actors truly were BTFO so it wasn't just casual larping.

medieval italian mercenaries as soldiers

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Definetly Roman times. These guys were so nuts they even recreated sea battles on Colosseum

>>2741072
how did they manage that? to make the Colosseum into a lake

>>2741072

How certain are we that those sea battle reenactments actually happened? It seems to me it would be pretty much impossible to make the Colosseum watertight.

>>2741628
I don't think it would have had to have been watertight, they just would have needed more water flowing into it than out of it. The fact that it wasn't watertight probably made it easier to simulate waves too.