Ears sticking out of helmet?

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Vegetius and other classical authors.

M.VIB.M.

[Doc]

Just my two cents.

Going back to the original post on this topic, one would think that if your ears are sticking out of a helmet, that this would cause some hazard, no?

Suppose a sword is swung down in a club like fashion on top of the helmet, even with padding, a hard downward thrust on the top of the skull will compress any material.

Thus if the helmet is sitting on the ears or even hovering just over the ears, a downdward blow will drive the edge of those ear cut outs into the ears.

Thus the original owner of the helmet, in my opinion, had a head small enough to make the ears fit into the bowl. Look at the "Gallic C". No ear guards, just a cut outs.

[Caius Fabius]

Vegetius and other classical authors.

M.VIB.M.

please give some citations? Where in Vegetius? It is so easy to point to the classical authors, but we could be more exact on these forums, as we want to back up our information and make it easy for people to verify. I can cite the encyclopedia, but....... :roll:

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

I know what you mean but well i dont have them here...

so i cannot give you any proper quote at this time, i was taught this info at University.

Try here:

http://museums.ncl.ac.uk/archive/arma/c ... a/veg1.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_o ... penditures

http://members.tripod.com/~S_van_Dorst/legio.html

or ask a proper scholar directly, since my head is neither an encyclopedia nor a cd rom

M.VIB.M.



4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Definitive Primary Source On the Conduct Of Roman Warfare, December 15, 2007
By Michael A Neulander "Political Philosophy" (VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This review is from: Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science (Liverpool University Press - Translated Texts for Historians) (Paperback)
I read this book for a graduate course in Roman history.

It is important to understand that the army of the Republic was by no means a second rate militia force. "Discipline and training were its hallmarks; the care with which the camp was laid out reveals no ordinary grouping of amateur warriors. The Romans adopted professional attitudes to warfare long before the army had professional institutions." The army's professionalism is proven by reading the one military training manual still extant, Vegetiu's fourth century CE Epitome of Military Science. Most experts agree that Vegetius' Epitome was certainly a compilation of earlier Roman military training and doctrine manuals that have not survived. This manual is replete with information for the commander on how to recruit, train, supply, billet, and employ his legion in combat.

Rome had an army from its earliest beginnings as a small city-state. There is little known of the structure of the military in early Roman history. "At first, military service in the Roman Army entailed a man being away from his home...for a few weeks or months over the summer. The campaign season opened in March and closed in October, as official festivals in the Roman calendar make clear." Servius Tullius was the sixth king of Rome who reigned from about 580-530 BCE. Servius instituted many reforms in both the political and military structures of Rome which were codified in the Sevian Constitution. He conducted the first census of the citizenry and used this information to divide the population into classes based on wealth. The class structure was then used both politically for voting classification and militarily to determine in what portion of the legion a man would serve in to defend Rome. The men were organized into centuries (hundreds) within the class structure. Militarily, the class ranking was based on wealth, which determined where a man would serve in the legion based on his ability to provide his own weapons and equipment. The wealthiest class in Roman society served in the equites or the Roman cavalry, of which there were eighteen centuries. Obviously, these men had the financial ability to provide their own horses. The majority of the population was divided into five classes who served in the infantry. Men who had no property had no military obligation. The military tactics used were similar to the Greek hoplite formation.

"Members of the `first class' were to be armed with a bronze cuirass, spear, sword, shield and greaves to protect the legs; the `second class' with much the same panoply minus the cuirass; the `third', the
same but lacking the greaves; the `fourth; the shield and spear only, and the `fifth' was armed only with slings or stones.

During the period of the Republic, the structure of the army went through some changes after the enactment of the Servian Constitution. When a Roman citizen volunteered or was drafted, it was to fight in a specific campaign rather than for a specific length of time. Since Rome's empire was expanding in the second century BCE, it might not be uncommon for soldiers to serve in successive campaigns with a length of service reaching six years--the usual maximum length of service. In some very rare instances a soldier could volunteer to serve longer terms of service, mainly for the booty reward available to soldiers. Normally, a soldier would be maintained in a citizen reserve for sixteen years after his initial term of service. If a soldier was mobilized later, it was unlikely he would retain his former rank. This fact made it difficult for a man to make the army a lucrative profession in the Republic era. Even if a citizen showed exceptional aptitude and bravery in combat and rose to the rank of centurion, he would only have received double the pay of an ordinary soldier until Julius Caesar changed the pay and reward structure for his legions.

Recommended reading for those interested in Roman history, military history.