Cornuti - or not?

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Ah, I thought that would be the case. Actually, what Ammianus states is that those two troop types were totally unsuitable to defend Julian, unlike the 8000 auxilliary troops who accompanied Silvanius over the same route just a short time before. I have argued that the passage here could have been corrupted in the past and what the sentence probably said was a unit of Catafractarii and Sagittarii, which would equate to heavily armoured riders in the company of horse archers, which would have made much more sense.

Thanks, that could be one thing, but "Ballistarii" to "Sagittarii is quite a leap for a copyist's error, don't you think?

Anyways, back on topic, I find it unlikely that the Romans would have put horns on their helmets. Idealogically it would have come across as "Barbaric" to the Romans and Roman troops.