Praetorian at villa albani?

[Gaius Colletti]

This statue is really unique: segmentata + corinthian, wow!

There's also the figure from a fresco painting in the Domus Aurea, which appears to show a bronze segmentata worn with Corinthian helmet.

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Does anyone have a link or picture of this? I must have heard about this fresco 3x now, but I've never seen it

[cavi]

"attic=pretorian"
Luca, you right, its not so simple... it more attic+segmentata+balteus=praetorian... one guy says on this tread: we dont know exactly.
but is realistic. i have so much discussion about praetorians and attic helmet. Much people says the praetorians dont have attic helmets, because of artistic blablabla... but see the picture, is it a helmet (phrigian) from a city guardsmen (vigiles) of rome. 3kg of casted brass, gold plated (gold was stolen with a drill bit, only marks have been found).
so its a monumental helmet for representation something, still not a combat helm! so they have their parade clothes...

let us have some time and i will post more.

[Decebalus]

The "Adlerhelm" (in fact a griffin-helmet - "Greifenkammhelm")was part of an overlifesize statue (presumably of Roma as this is exact the headgear she wears on Republican coins of the late 3rd/2nd C. BC.) or a relief.
It can't have been a helmet because of the following reasons:
As said in the previous post it is very heavy. I don't have the exact weight but the thickness of the metal is up to 6,9 mm!
The height is 53,9 cm and the lenght 48,5 cm. It is 23 cm wide and as there was only the right part found it would in total have been 46 cm wide! Both halfs had been joined by two thick bolts (if there was a left part ever, the bolts could have fixed it to a relief as well).
The construction would be at least very unusual for a genuine, wearable helmet...

Apart from these facts (A. Bottini et al., Antike Helme (Mainz 1988) p.543f. cat. 122)
why should it have been worn by vigiles? Just because it was found near Rome?

Greets

[cavi]

argh, you right andreas.

i dont read correctly the english text... my fault...

about the vigiles: "a Montefortino type helmet with the inscription AVRELIVS VICTORINVS MIL COH XII VRB shows that the city guards were still wearing the ancient traditional Roman panoply, a circumstance confirmed by the image of the dwafs dressed as urbaniciani in the famous fresco of pompeii. (...) Also from Herulaneum come a Phrygian shaped helmet of the Conversano type, decorated with a Roman eagle on the back. The helmet coult be have been used by some vigilis, and worn as family tradition until the destruction of the city in AD 79. Splendid helmets reserved only for the imperial guard (praetorians?) are confirmed from artistic monuments and archaeology: the most striking helmet is that from the Nemi ship, an Attic specimen with the crest shaped like a griffin's head. It was probably worn by a guardsman of Caligula; similar helmets, from the Julio-Claudian age, are visible on a military frieze from Turin"

probably... vigiles. sometime i'm little bit euphoric... sorry

vale

[Dany Boy]

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This briefly done pencil-sketch is just a humble attempt to visualize my concept how this noble warrior could look like in colors!
Could be a Praetorian Guard in serves since the late Flavian era as the authors of the book Raffaele Dámato & Graham Sumner described it.
Arms and Armour of the Imperial Roman Soldier from Marius to Commodus
Helmet on that fescue has been qualified as Pseudo-Corinthian type.

[caiusbeerquitius]

In regard of the pics on the first page here it looks to me rather like an actual Corinthian, not like an Apulo-Corinthian. Nice colour-add on :-)

[john roberts]

Wasn't Nero supposed to have raised a legion equipped "In the Greek fashion"? Maybe this is an officer of such a unit.

[Dany Boy]

In regard of the pics on the first page here it looks to me rather like an actual Corinthian, not like an Apulo-Corinthian. Nice colour-add on :-)

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Two different kind of Elmo Apulo-Corinzio

[caiusbeerquitius]

Exactly, Dany Boy. The Apulo-Corinthians do not have the deep slope on the back side you see in the side-view of the Villa Albani relief. Also, the Apulo-Corinthians do usually have a straight lower edge, and a small neck-guard, both missing on the helmet on the relief:


For comparison:

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Corinthian:


Also weird is the high relief, which would not be found on Apulo-Corinthian helmets. They are decorated with engraving.

I do not think it is astonishing to find an actual Corinthian helmet or a mix of a Corinthian and an Apulo-Corinthian on such a relief. The archaizing character of military objects in Roman art has been shown extensively by

G. Waurick, Untersuchungen zur historisierenden Rüstung in der römischen Kunst, in: Jahrbuch RGZM 30, 1983, 265-301, Tab. 37-62.

In regard of setting up a soldier impression contemporary to this relief with reconstructions I would avoid an Apulo-Corinthian helmet, since they do not pop up in archaeological record after the 4th century BCE, although some may have been worn by Romans right after Cannae. The Autun helmet is, since it apparently was part of a statue, rather subject to the rules of Roman art than to those of the Roman Army. Of course, this is just my point of view, there are also others.

[Paul Elliott]

Greetings, Its Called Artistic License :wink: , sure some of it could be based on real items but these images conjure up more questions then they do answers

Artistic license! From Roman sculptors to Victorian painters, and to modern Hollywood production teams. Lorica segmentata has always been the 'make it up-no-one will know' victim!

Fantasy armour of a recent kind:

[caiusbeerquitius]

Eeeeeewwwwww.....!
What movie is this horrible specimen from?

[Paul Elliott]

Eeeeeewwwwww.....!
What movie is this horrible specimen from?

Have you not heard of the 2004 horror that is: K I N G A R T H U R ???

Yes, he is wearing hamata underneath.
Yes he is wearing a musculata over the hamata.
Yes he is wearing bits of fantasy segmentata.
Yes, he is (inevitably) wearing bracers (because its a Roman movie....)

But the point is, segmentata is often prone to artistic license, even today.

[caiusbeerquitius]

No, didn´t watch it. Lucky me.

[Paul Elliott]

Watch it.... you will appreciate re-enactors so much more In fact, if the movies were accurate, we'd be out of a job/hobby... so as long as they do it wrong, we can do the educational side.....

[DL Cooper Studios]

WOW! What a lot of sculptor bashers we have here! Since I am a sculptor; I take great offense. Well, not really

The thing is, I have no idea how ancient sculptors got they're information. But, I can tell you it is FAR easier to look at examples and reference material sitting in front of me than it is to just make it up, as some of you have suggested.

There is always that loud mouth know-it-all that comes along and criticizes every single detail. They make sure that you know that he knows that you have got it wrong. Guys like that make our work very difficult. They are so annoying that you want to slam a sculpting tool through his big fat know-it-all head. We try to get it right just to shut that blow hard up!

That being said, I am sure that they did their best with the information at hand and that the images in stone are probably pretty darn close.

You cannot compare ancient artists to Hollywood or Victorians or any other later period. Keep in mind that these works weren't primarily art. They had no concept of art as we know it today. So, the idea of 'artistic license' is ridiculous. These works were created to commemorate, memorialize or propagandize events. Art, even decoration in private homes, always relayed a political, economic or religious message.

Art is why we know about these ancient cultures. It is the paintings, sculpture, pottery, coinage, and writings that inform us of the lives of these people.

Now for the helmet pictured. I have been doing research for a sculpture of Scipio Africanus. On all the coinage, where he is wearing a helmet, he is wearing a Corinthian. I found that very interesting.



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