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Quote:
Remarks: Bronze helmet bowl with a marked step down at the occiput area.
The embossed decoration on the brow of the helmet bowl seems to suggest the frontal portion of an 'attic' helmet.
The rear neck guard, very small in size, seems to be edged with a bronze strip.
The cheek guards are very large and carry several small holes that may have been used to attach a lining of some kind.
References: Robinson, H.R. (1975), "The Armour of Imperial Rome", (Arms & Armour Press), p.65, No.150
I was wondering if anyone has actually seen these helmets? Is the skull made of two pieces, with the neck guard portion riveted on, or is it really a "step" in the occipital region?
If so, is the lower part further inwards or outwards?
If someone has a pic he or she can post, I´d be very happy. 
Christian K.
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Looks like the step goes outwards Christian and I would be 99% certain that the bowl was one piece.
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Wow, is this real? That looks like the ones you see in the reliefs...TC I think.....
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Byron Angel
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Thanks for your help, Adrian!
Christian K.
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...the two helmets in question are real enough, and are in the National Museum Naples. ( but just try and get to see them...I have without success three times in the last 30 years....the standard "restoration/in storage" excuse is always trotted out ....!! :roll: :roll: ). They are said to have come from Herculaneum ( i.e. looted from there), but there is little doubt they are genuine ( if only because they are unlike anything else, and because a roughly similar type,Italic 'B', does exist in the Zagreb Museum), though without provenance, they may not be.
Robinson theorised that if genuine, they were an old-fashioned type worn by city-guards ( cohortes urbanes) and firemen/watchmen(vigiles), and hence, being frequently seen, became the models for Italian sculptors and artists......
Personally, I doubt this, because they are so obviously 'different' to those seen on Friezes, Columns etc, but their existence, if genuine, does point to the possibility that the type so frequently depicted as 'Praetorian' really did exist in Rome.........
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Why are the cheek pieces so large?
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You may want to keep an eye on the writings of Salvatore Ortisi, who's studying the Roman military presence in the Vesuvius area. He says that these helmets were actually found in the sottoscale rooms of the so-called 'gladiator's barracks' in Pompeii together with belt buckles, gladius, two daggers and a round-shield. Since they were found separate from all the gladiator armor, Ortisi suggests this equipment belonged to a guard-room at the barracks, possibly manned by troops from the Misenate fleet. He considers them such because of the thin sheet metal they're made of and the lack of parallels.
S.Ortisi, 'Roman military in the Vesuvius area', in: L.de Blois & E.Lo Cascio, The Impact of the Roman Army (Leiden 2007), 343-353.
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Jasper,
do you think that if these troops are from the fleet that they might actually be Roman Marines?
v/r
Mike
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Well, I find his argument a bit of a leap of faith ("Helmets atypical for army & thin ergo they must be fleet"), but I have argued in that same volume mentioned above that from the mid 1st the fleets did have separate marines. So it is possible.
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Or vigiles?
TARBICvS/Jim Bowers
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Uuuuum.....can I remind everyone they are 'provenance unknown', believed to come from Herculaneum, not Pompeii ?? :? ?:
So why does this guy believe they came from the gladiator barracks in Pompeii ???
"dulce et decorum est pro patria mori " - Horace
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Paul McDonnell-Staff
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This guy has studied excavation reports from the area, where there is a report of 1767/8 describing the find of two helmets and some other military equipment that matches the items in the museum which he did get to see (at least, the photos with the article are credited to him)? That makes the provenance at least as good if not better than the vague report Robinson comes up with.
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So thinner armour for marines = better floating ability....ok :wink:
Visne partem mei capere? Comminus agamus! * Me semper rogo, Quid faceret Iulius Caesar? * Confidence is a good thing! Overconfidence is too much of a good thing.
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Yep,..thinner armor/metal floats better :wink:
Mike
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If not me...who?
If not now...when?
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