Musculata Images

[Nathan Ross]

do you think it could be hamata instead?

It could be mail or scale, yes - but 173AD is a little late for a fitted hamata with shoulder doublings. There's still a residual belief, I think, that ordinary soldiers did not use the musculata, and so anything that looks like one gets labelled as mail or scale with 'painted on details'. But it might just be easier to assume that it's intended to be exactly what it looks like...

This is something I've pondered on as there are a number of Late Roman depictions of infantry and cavalry wearing this type of helmet. A classic example is on page 291 of Vol 2 of The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare.

This is an old saw of mine, that I periodically bore people with - this ancient thread from 7 years ago has a lot of my waffling on the subject, but unfortunately most of image links are now broken.

Suffice to say, these odd helmets turn up a lot, as you say, from Ares in c.180, and Aelius Septimus (above) at around the same time, via the Dura Europos frescoes and the Arch of Constantine through to the Fifth century, and Egypt (bottom of page). I still maintain that they represent some distinct helmet typology, currently unknown in the archeological record, but widely used by the Roman army from the late 2nd century onwards.

However, as this thread is about the musculata, we should perhaps leave the odd helmets alone for now mile:

- Nathan