Starting an auxillia unit.

[Crispvs]

I would say that the Imperial Italic 'D' from Mainz is spot on for a mid first century AD helmet. In form (leaving aside the decoration) it can really be nothing else. The find of the Imerial Italic 'E' at Hoffheim dating to the early second century and clearly old when discarded, which is in most respects the same as the 'D' aside from the angle of the neck guard (and we now know that the angle of the neck guard on its own is not reliable as a dating method) broadly confirms the dating of the 'D'. It is possible (and Robinson allowed for this possibility) that the 'D' might have been 'redecorated' at a later date but as the brasswork had been stripped from the Hoffheim helmet before deposition we cannot rely on that hypothesis. Junklemann's theory that the Mainz 'D' is a third century helmet is based on the decoration alone and does not take account of the form of the helmet itself. As I have pointed out elsewhere on RAT in the past, there may be other reasons why the decoration may be similar which are harder for us to identify. One possibility is that helmets made in a particular place may have been decorated in a way which was traditional for that place for a very long time, allowing for a 150 year separation but sharing a similar (not the same) style of decoration.

Crispvs