Face mask or face guard in late roman period

[Robert Vermaat]

You seem to have overlooked Julian's panegyric to Constantius, already cited by Nathan, which gives you another example.

Same problem, smae explanation: this might have been a theatrical one-off for the spectacular occasion. Hey, it's my explanation. mile:

I accept that there is a certain amount of rhetoric in Ammianus' description but there is no need to discount its basic accuracy. He describes Sassanian forces in similar terms (Amm. 24.2.10; 24.7.8; 25.1.12).

Indeed, he is describing Persians here, whom we know (from other descriptions as well as artwork to have used such face coverings. May I remind the court that we do not have such evidence barring this description of this particular parade.

I see no reason to doubt that the clibanarii mentioned by Ammianus were Roman.

neither do I, but I hope that don't have to remind you that Roman cavalry was seldomly Roman-born but very often drawn from foreign peoples. For our period, that included Srmatians, Alans, Huns and Persians. So in fact 'Roman' clibanarii' could well have been not quite 'Roman'. I assumed this was known to the readers.

On the other hand, such units did not form an overly numerous element of the Late Roman army (only ten units are mentioned in the Notitia) and I don't think that there is any evidence to suggest that regular cavalry units were equipped with masked helmets (those cited in Julian's panegyric being almost certainly clibanarii), so I will go along with you in saying that they were not "a common item".

Thank you sir.