Horn Artefacts

[Decebalus]

Hi Andreas,

Late Roman Tribune
See the discussion here

Great drawing. But as I've argued in the discussion, this man looks like a common late Roman federate soldier and not like a late Roman tribune. While under some very exceptional circumsatnces a tribune might do away with all his armour or other badges of honour that would make him recognisable as an officer, the common late Roman tribune would not look like this.

To come back to the discussion about the "authenticity" of the Bainobaudes painting/figure, I will try in my best English which should be far better to fully explain what I mean...

What were the "badges of honour" of a late Roman tribune of a Germanic unit?
The muscle-armour with sash is depicted on the arc of Constantine for himself and an officer leaning on his shield not involved in the fighting.
If an officer leading a charge of unarmoured men would possibly do without heavy armour too or not, will remain open to debate I fear.
The rank markers which made him still visible as an officer were the wearing of a torques of gold, the amount of precious metals on his equipment, the gold platet shield boss (all adoptet from the Germanic warrior society as confirmed by graves and bog finds). Perhaps the form and quality of his tunic decoration would also have shown his rank.
The "horned" helmets can't have been an artistic convention, because there simply is no convention at all for this special kind of decoration.
As it would have a somewhat exotic touch to the audience I think it shows something which really excisted.
So it can be feathers or horns - for me it looks more like horns. That they are fixed to the front of the helmets and not the sides would speak for goat's horns.
The self-identification of Germanic warrior groups with certain animals has been convincingly treated by M.P. Speidel in his "Ancient Germanic Warriors".
Apart from the Iulii monument and two or three rather questionable depictions of horns on Roman helmets (gravestone of C. Castritius Victor, "Centurio" on the Portonaccio sarcophagus, Sora frieze) there are no signs that horned helmets have been a Roman tradition. Apart from the Italic helmets of the 4th C. BC, horned helmets seem to be influenced either by Celtic or Germanic warrior societies and this makes it probable to identify the warriors on the arc of Constantine with the Cornuti.
It might be of interest that some possible helmet attachments made of bronze sheet in the form of horns have been found in Vindonissa (1st C).

[attachment=9332]Helmaufstze_Vindonissa.jpg[/attachment]

And a reconstruction how they might have looked attached to a helmet:

[attachment=9333]T19-Equites-singulares_fertig2.jpg[/attachment]