10-24-2007, 12:12 AM
It seems that Roman high-ranking officers prefered the "hellenistic look" in their armour until the 3rd Century AD - if we believe the works of artists which have been teached to show armour in an idealised, heroic way. And heroic in Roman art means hellenistic. Also the Greeks showed pieces of equipment - like the Corinthian helmet - still in their art after they had fallen out of use in reality, because it was regarded as heroic.
So the reliefs and sculptures have to be treated very carefully and cannot be taken as exact replicas of the real gear worn by Roman officers.
The helmets most often shown fall broadly in the categories "Apulo/Italo-Corinthian" or "Attic".
An Apulo-Corinthian-looking helmet for example is shown - on legionarie's heads - besides the Montefortino-type on the so-called Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus, which is dated between the late 2nd to mid-1st century BC. For this time we have hundreds of Montefortinos found elsewhere (even when armour as grave-goods died out with Roman supremacy in Italy) but not one type which looks like the depicted . So we have no reason to believe that the Apulo-Corinthian type was worn into the Roman period. It was widely worn in South-Italy from the late 6th to 4th century BC. In the case of officers no wonders that there's no helmet found which can be identified as belonged to them regarding the ratio legionaries to officers.
The curious "parade" Apulo-Corinthian from Autun (dated to the 1st century) could also have belonged to a statue, but perhaps shows Roman officer's bad taste.
It is of course possible that one or another of the late hellenistic helmets which appeared on the marked without findplace and findcontext once belonged to a Roman officer.
Greets,
Decebalus/Andreas Gagelmann
So the reliefs and sculptures have to be treated very carefully and cannot be taken as exact replicas of the real gear worn by Roman officers.
The helmets most often shown fall broadly in the categories "Apulo/Italo-Corinthian" or "Attic".
An Apulo-Corinthian-looking helmet for example is shown - on legionarie's heads - besides the Montefortino-type on the so-called Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus, which is dated between the late 2nd to mid-1st century BC. For this time we have hundreds of Montefortinos found elsewhere (even when armour as grave-goods died out with Roman supremacy in Italy) but not one type which looks like the depicted . So we have no reason to believe that the Apulo-Corinthian type was worn into the Roman period. It was widely worn in South-Italy from the late 6th to 4th century BC. In the case of officers no wonders that there's no helmet found which can be identified as belonged to them regarding the ratio legionaries to officers.
The curious "parade" Apulo-Corinthian from Autun (dated to the 1st century) could also have belonged to a statue, but perhaps shows Roman officer's bad taste.
It is of course possible that one or another of the late hellenistic helmets which appeared on the marked without findplace and findcontext once belonged to a Roman officer.
Greets,
Decebalus/Andreas Gagelmann
Andreas Gagelmann
Berlin, Germany
Berlin, Germany
