Legate/Tribune helmet hunt

[Crispvs]

Byron,

Have you had a look in Robinson recently? You might be surprised I suspect.


Christian,

Thanks for the thoughts. I agree that the faces on the Italio-Corinthians are often limited to an incised pair of eyes rather than a full face, whereas the third century helmets feature a full face. However, the Autun helmet also features a full face and its outline (if the attached rows of embossed laurel leaves were to be removed), with its backward sloping form is very similar to the outline of the Italio-Corinthians, which means that to me at least, there is a strong possibility that it is descended from them (form being more significant, to my mind, than decoration). The third century helmets show full faces on the peaks but if the masks and large embossed crests were to be removed I think that they too would reflect the form of a debased Corinthian type helmet, which would make the peaks on these helmets equivalent to the front rea on the Autun helmet.

Now, it is indeed true that we do not know of any archaeological specimens which would cover the long gaps in time, but then again, that does not mean they did not exist. I am sure the Autun helmet would not have existed in isolation. It is worth rmembering that, for whatever reason, some items do not survive in large numbers. Think, for example, of the survival of manicae in he archaeological record. We have ample representational evidence for their use in the late empire, yet the excavated examples date to the Flavian and Hadrianic periods. If we were to work by the archaeological evidence alone we would have to question their existence in later periods as anything more than things inspired by old representations.

Now, I am not about to propose trying to reconstruct something from a period from which no archaeological examples are known - there would be too many short term variables to be able to draw a proper conclusion as to their appearance in the period between known examples from those known examples. What I *am* prepared to do however, is to suggest that we be prepared to agree that they probably did exist, even though we do not know what they looked like and so cannot reconstruct them.

Crispvs