Late Roman Attic helmets

[Diocle]

Getting back to the 'attic' type helmet... Just to further confuse the idea of a limited chronology for these things, here's what looks very much like the very same helmet, as it appears on the tombstone of T. Flavius Mikkalus (1st-2nd C AD):

[attachment=7093]Miccalus.jpg[/attachment]

Compare this to the helmets worn by the attacking troops on the Arch of Constantine...

True depiction, or 'artistic license'...? :errr:

It's a true depiction, the 'Artistic licence' doesn't work for three centuries when the artistic languages changed so much! The pics don't show Pseud Corinthian helmets but a precise kind of helmet almost unchanget till the age of Constantine and the Byzantine Empire, this cannot be a so called 'Artistic convention' lasting from the first century till the VI!

Here my opinion: We have the Attic helmet, we have a lot of them perfectly preserved:

From Campania I century:



Reliefs from the monument to Lusius Storax first half of I century AD, from Teate (Chieti):



From Archeological Museum of Taranto:



From Pompei, the so called Attic Helmet in all its splendour! This is the Helmet we are looking for! Try to draw a laterl view on a surface of this helmet and you'll get 'EXACTLY' the image of the tombstone of Severus Acceptus:



This is my interpretation of a III century leginary with the 'Attic' gladiatorial helmet, we know Marcus Aurelius during the Marcomannic wars recruited slaves (probably galdiators) and also bandits to form two new legins during the terrible years of the great plague :

[Flavivs Aetivs]

That particular helmet is a gladiatorial piece, I know a guy who's an expert on "the games." It's likely that the artists had never seen soldiers in action before, and assumed Gladiatorial equipment was stuff they may have used.

[john m roberts]

The helmet on the Mikkalus relief is probably a Boetian helmet. It was used by cavalry and was probably the ancestor of the familiar wide-brimmed gladiatorial helmets. In relief sculpture the brim is usually abbreviated because it would be too fragile and easily broken, giving the impression of a narrow-brimmed or even brimless helmet.

[Vitruvius]

Ave to all!!!!!!!!!
Just a couple of Thoughts: To wit; As much as I like the "Late Roman Attic" helm, I do not believe that ANY of us know how, if they were real helms, the crest could be put on. The brim could have very well been like the "Sou'wester" brim, except that it was made of metal.
Salve,
Vitruvius a.k.a. Larry Mager

[koechlyruestow]

I agree with Evan, this helmet was perhaps much better known during the happy years of the Pax Romana than the regular military helmet, and certainly more sensational. The same with Heliodorus' so-called Persian cataphract helmet, it is a rather precise description of the Gesichtshelme/Cavalry Sports type C worn by cavalry units on parades, festivals and games, and as such were probably better known to Heliodorus and his public, and certainly more sensational, than their more functional regular combat helmets.

I do not understand why this thread is called Attic helmet. What is so Attic about these helmets? As John Roberts says, the Mikalus helmet is a Beoetiean helmet, and the Pompei mural helmets are almost all pseudo-Corynthian helmets.

[ValentinianVictrix]

It's probably more likely that the helmets shown on the pen & in drawings of the now lost Column of Arcadius and the similarly lost Column of Theodosius show the 'Attic Type' helmets that are being discussed here.