Equites sagittarii (late 2nd century)

[MVinc]

Hi!
Nowadays the Niederbieber helmets are rather thought to have been Infantry helmets. The enormous neck-guards make them very dangerous for cavalry to wear. Normally, cavalry helmets had short neck-guards. So the presence of a Niederbieber cheek piece does not make the presence of a cavalry unit, neither does the presence of spathae at that time, as the spatha was also used commonly by infantry.

Actually Im still quite confused about helmets of the late 2nd century. It is not that long I thought helmets like Niderbieber are typical for the 3rd century. Now I know that they were already in use during Marcomannic wars. Besides Niederbieber I know about Niedermormter (Imperial Italic H) and Theilenhofen. Are there any other possibilities?

But back to the topic. Author of the article in JRMES (our Slovak archeologist) Ján Rajtár wrote that it is probably Niederbieber and it really looks like that one, but I think very similar cheek pieces were used also on cavalry helmets weren't they? This is that fragment:



About that swords, yes I know that in this period spathae became quite popular for infantry, but were they 80 - 90 centimetres long? Was there any difference in lengh of infantry and cavalry spathae?

Thank you for replies!