Caroline Lawrence, the author of the Roman Mysteries, is starting work on a new series, Roman Quests. She wants to put a praetorian helmet on the cover, and is looking to RAT to help get as accurate a depiction as possible. The first mockup had a kind of centurion helmet with a nose piece, so I know we can do better than that.
Kevin Mills suggested pinging Graham Sumner. Other opinions?
Richard Campbell
Legio XX - Alexandria, Virginia
RAT member #6?
Praetorians most likely used the very same helmets as ordinary legionaries although some might be more decorated(because they were better paid and every Emperor would certainly wanted his guard to look really good).There is for example fragment showing possible Praetorian solier with earlier Praetorian symbol of scorpion as relief on his helmet cheek pieces.If we would blindly trust to Roman art then Praetorians possibly had some kind of ceremonial dress and armour including Attic style helmets(shown also on many battle reliefs showing Praetorians in action)but in general there probably was no significant difference among standard legionary and Praetorian equipment.Episode in Tacitus speaks also for this scenario(on the other hand that same Tacitus shortly suggests elsewhere that Legionaries,Auxiliaries and Praetorians had all their own specific gear).While there are many reliefs showing Praetorians with various (usually Attic)helmets these reliefs can hardly give completely exact idea of how those helmets looked because most of it are more or less stylizied.
Apart from art I think there was never found any helmet which could by safely attributed as once belonging to a Praetorian soldier(maybe with exception of helmet from Nemi ship but such extravagant helmet almost certainly served only in environment of the Roman court and in service to as extravagant ruler as was Caligula).Just now I was sketching Praetorians of Aurelianus and these are equiped quite standardly as any other Roman regular troops of those days(although at that time,it is,almost securely,known,Praetorians preffered scale armour and were also likely among the last troops to use Pilum javelin):
