Painting of Roman soldier on sarcophagus?

[Theodosius the Great]

Those are closed boots Hellenistic soldiers are sometimes depicted wearing, and are not Roman.

Hi Ruben, yes I realize they're not Roman which is why I think they could only serve for, at best, an Auxiliary impression (in a Roman context). But I may choose a more Roman pattern, not sure yet.

The one looks like some helmets I have seen, vaugely, but the other looks like a helmet worn by a Spanish conquistidore..

I know, it looks like a Morion (which is post-Conquistador, BTW :wink: ). I don't know which type of helmet it's portraying either. :?

The larger pics that I took in the museum this January are here:

http://i353.photobucket.com/albums/r383 ... G_5585.jpg
http://i353.photobucket.com/albums/r383 ... G_5599.jpg

Wow, thanks for posting these ! Great resolution, you can even see the guy's socks in the second link. I wonder why Peter Connolly wrote that he's wearing scale armor. It clearly looks mail to me.

~Theo

[M. CVRIVS ALEXANDER]

The original pics are actually significantly larger, but photobucket shrinks them.

[MeinPanzer]

Ahh, excellent! I was wondering if perhaps these were later due to the helmets, which remind me of a sort of styalized homage to the past!
That is interesting, also the helmets which, while I can's place them, must be a fairly accurate portrayal of something that also existed!

I don't know exactly what you mean by this, but the helmets represented here and on the other 15 or so stelae from Sidon are all pretty standard contemporary Hellenistic helmet types for which we have many other examples (both actual and iconographic).

What I mean is, "I can't place them" :?

The one looks like some helmets I have seen, vaugely, but the other looks like a helmet worn by a Spanish conquistidore....I know of no helmet like that in ancient times....nothing more, just an admission of my lack of recognition.


But reading it again, I see I must have deleted an important part of the sentence..... roll: :oops: Hopefully the edit will help.....

Oh, I see what you mean. Salmas' helmet is a helmet of the "Sidon" type awkwardly-rendered in a frontal view. It is among the simplest of the Hellenistic helmet types, and was perhaps cheaply manufactured on a large scale to equip the legions of mercenaries employed by the Ptolemaic kings. Here's a photograph from another Sidon stele showing such a helmet in profile:

http://www.antiquemilitaryhistory.com/i ... ontype.JPG

This type of helmet has a broad, plain rim that comes to a point in a prominent visor and a crest like that found on the Thraco-Attic helmet. On the depictions of such helmets at Sidon no external decoration (i.e. bands or volutes) is visible and they are only embellished with red crests emerging from the tip of the metal crest of the helmet.