02-17-2011, 04:45 PM
Quote:Has anyone demonstrated that the crossbars were added at the same time as the Dacian campaign? Finding a helmet that dates 50 years on either side of the campaign is harldy evidence of causation or even correlation.
The Berzobis helmet (found in excavations at Berzovia in Romania) is the earliest so far known, the reinforces being crude additions, and that fortress was only occupied by IV Flavia Felix for a comparatively short period (somewhere between AD 106 and 119, but you'll find different versions of the start and end dates in different places). Probably the nearest to a smoking gun you're going to get, unless someone identifies another piece of Trajan's memoirs with the Latin word for 'cross-piece' in it.
Quote:Is there a primary source that says the Romans reinforced their helmets because of the falx?
Of course not. It's one of those pieces of speculation that morphs into a factoid and then a few years later turns up in a question along the lines of 'I read somewhere that...'. The Berzobis helmet only helped to reinforce it (pun unintended). Segmental armguards and falces are a similar factoidal association, as are no lorica seg in the East, and so on and so on. And, strangely, a lot of them have their origins in the opinions of Sir Ian Richmond.
As for the effect of the falx on an unprotected helmet, David Sim did some experiments on this and used the facilities of the weapons research centre at Shrivenham to produce high-speed film of the moment of impact (the tip of the blade turns to plasma apparently). He is working on another book on armour at the moment and I think I have persuaded him to produce a companion website with some of these weapons-testing film clips on it.
Mike Bishop
