Face mask or face guard in late roman period

[Robert Vermaat]

Ah, but Ammianus was not a witness to this particular adventus! - therefore his description of the clibanarii must be generic and not individual. He's describing what they usually looked like...

Denied your honour. I know that because Ammianus did probably witness more heavy Roman cavalry elsewhere, and certainly describes them in action elsewhere, but in those cases, facemasks are never mentioned.

However, you could argue that the masked helmets were 'parade' items, not worn in battle. Possibly true, although the descriptions in the panegyrics of these troops suggests there was something especially fearsome about their appearance. Plus (I think) the Persian cataphracts wore masks in combat, so it's not an impossible feat or anything...

I don't say it's impossible - indeed, Roman cavalry did wear facemasks in earlier periods, likewise do we know them from non-Roman cavalry, but the whole of the evidence for the use with Late Roman cavalry seems to rest on Constantius' parade into Rome and a copy of a vanished monument. :whistle: