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Quote:Question, have any victory monuments ever been found ? I once heard there was a large deposit found in France of Gallic weaponry in a votive context. I am not sure however where that was.
This is the deposit of hundreds of Celtic panoplies from Ribemont-sur-Ancre, though it was collected over a fairly long period of time, and definitely does not come from a single battle.
Ruben
He had with him the selfsame rifle you see with him now, all mounted in german silver and the name that he\'d give it set with silver wire under the checkpiece in latin: Et In Arcadia Ego. Common enough for a man to name his gun. His is the first and only ever I seen with an inscription from the classics. - Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
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Thanks !! I forgot what site it was 
I am wondering if any other victory monuments erected by the Greeks or Romans were ever found... I do not know how religious it was but a victory post with a lot of armour would be food for thieves i can imagine...
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H.J.Vrielink.
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I wonder how we should find out if a helmet was an "officer´s" helmet if there is no contextual information that it was one? Statistically something like 79 out of 80 Roman helmets shouldn´t have belonged to an "officer". And, as we know, e.g. Miltiades´helmet wasn´t much different from the ones of those he commanded, right?
Christian K.
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True Christian, it is all about context. Sadly the Romans of the first century AD did not build elaborate tombs including their armor like the Etruscans and Macedonians did...  So we can only guess, and since not every Auxilia cavalryman can have been Batavian or Germanic elite, let alone have earned so much money to regularly discard helmets in a votive context, we just do not know....
M.VIB.M.
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Quote:I wonder how we should find out if a helmet was an "officer´s" helmet if there is no contextual information that it was one? Statistically something like 79 out of 80 Roman helmets shouldn´t have belonged to an "officer".
Quote:The Theilenhofen helmet could as well have belonged to a higher officer than other very elaborate "Cavalry" specimens like the Xanten helmet.
As you probably know, the elaborate Theilenhofen helmet is inscribed 'Cohortis III Bracaragustanorum Turma Noni', so presumably belonged to a trooper in a humble Cohors Equitata! Can't imagine what their officer might have been wearing...
Nathan Ross
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Probably this :
![[Image: tumblr_lkq963e28X1qbvo89o1_400.jpg]](http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkq963e28X1qbvo89o1_400.jpg)
But then in metal...........
M.VIB.M.
BTW :
Cohortis III Bracaragustanorum Turma Noni
Just means that the helmet belonged to the 3rd Bracaragusta cohort in the Ninth(?)Turma, or maybe the Turma of Nonius if it is supposed to be a name... Not that it is a trooper or an officer...
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Quote:As you probably know, the elaborate Theilenhofen helmet is inscribed 'Cohortis III Bracaragustanorum Turma Noni', so presumably belonged to a trooper in a humble Cohors Equitata! Can't imagine what their officer might have been wearing...
Exactly. Loads of 3rd c. equipment is extremely elaborate. It also is very difficult to judge whether helmets like the Theilenhofen helmet really were that expensive back then. In regard of the fact that Roman money was marketable and not credit money, and that labour costs were extremely low (e.g. value of silver objects is normally simply stated by their weight) such helmets were possibly not regarded as highly valuable. It is neither of silver nor of gold. I don´t know its actual weight, but say it´s 1.5 kg. Then, if made of brass, it would have had a value of at least 55 Sesterces (+ X Sesterces for labour cost, but only when new), i.e. 13,75 Denars, i.e. a bit more than half an Aureus. Even in Caesars days a soldier got 225 Denars a year. So, it was a valuable item, but we might tend to overrate the value it had in antiquity.
Christian K.
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Quote:the helmet belonged to the 3rd Bracaragusta cohort in the Ninth(?)Turma, or maybe the Turma of Nonius if it is supposed to be a name... Not that it is a trooper or an officer...
But the owner surely wouldn't have mentioned the turma if he was commanding the cohort - or even commanding the turma itself! So not an officer, I'd say...
Quote:such helmets were possibly not regarded as highly valuable.
Quite - we assume they were valuable or prestigious, and therefore 'officers only', because they look flash to our modern perceptions. Even so, despite the lack of precious metals a highly decorated helmet like that must have taken considerable time and probably a skilled craftsman to create. Perhaps they were still quite common though - I wonder whether a cohort prefect (necessarily a wealthy man) might have paid to have his men fitted out in elaborate-looking equipment, as a reflection of his own status?  hock:
Nathan Ross
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That is an interesting thought indeed. However trying to calculate modern day value to ancient prices is very difficult if not totally in the realms of fantasy. We do not have any price list regarding armourers. It might be that many of the Auxiliary Equites did have elaborate helmets, a little like the elaborate outfits of the Samurai during the 16th centuries, but still we cannot say that a helmet is a soldiers helmet nor that it is an officers helmet. Not every helmet is inscribed, and not every helmet states the rank of its owner. Sometimes tombstone depictions of armour can shed a little light on things, but the entire case is still open to debate. We just do not know.
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Well, we have some papyri. One states, IIRC the price for a complete cavalry equipment of a singel soldier the price of 600 dr
Christian K.
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Do the papyri state Galeae or Cassis ?
and if they are there, does 600dr stand for Drachma or Denarii ?
I would love to see which papyri they are, probably not the Oxyrhinchus collection but i will ask the Papyrological institute in Leiden when i get the chance. Also the probable date of the Papyri matters a great deal, and the century in which they were written. I find this a very interesting topic, and much debate is needed if there will ever be any consensus about these items.
M.VIB.M.
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Some very interesting thoughts indeed. It's kinda funny how in the 3rd century you get these incredibly elaborate helmets and also a shift into cheaper mass produced helmets. As for identifying wether a helmet belongs to enlisted grunt types or higher ranking officers wouldn't high ranking officers helmets be more likely to have attachments for crests? I am not saying that is the fail-proof method of identification or automatic indicator but it would help when combined with other characteristics. BTW did anybody check out the link of the helmet I posted? It's definately an interesting piece. It sort of resembles the Thielenhofen types with the lobated crest but resembles a phrygian helmet too.....sorta. It actually reminds me exactly of one of the helmets on the Ludovisi sarcophagus of around the same time. I often thought a lot of the helmets and equipments portrayed on it were a bit fanciful and trying to invoke classical imagery but with finding this helmet it looks like at least one of the figures depicted is actually quite accurate. Maybe the others are too? The Sarcophagus also shows a couple Apulo-Corinthian helms or at least what appears to be Apulo-Corinthian. There is also a parazonium/gladius? with an animals head for the pommel but instead of the typical eagles head it appears to be a lions head and it is facing vertically instead of horizontally. Anyway here is the link:
Interesting Helmet
http://www.romanarmy.com/cms/component/o...Itemid,96/
Dennis Flynn
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P. Princ. 2/57, later 2nd c. CE
complete (?) equipment for a cavalryman : 600 dr(achmae)
P. Giss. 47, 115 CE
Thorax from good brass & fine fabric, very light 360 dr
Sword of Italian fabrication 80 dr
I don´t know any others, but probably there are several more.
Christian K.
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Great Christian ! Thank you for those Papyrus inventory numbers !
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While I still contend that many officers would have worn Etusco-Corinthian helmets, I do feel now that many would have also worn attic types, or pseudo-attic cavalry types. Though we have no example of a "true" Attic helmet (whatever that definition is supposed to entail), we do have examples like the Theilenhofen cavalry helmet but the brow plates still are not typical of what you'd expect. But I came across the Wensum helmet and though it resembles the Theilenhofen cav helmet in many ways its brow plate is distinctly "attic". heres a link:
side viewfront view
Dennis Flynn
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