02-20-2013, 03:17 AM
Thanks for those Heliodoruses! I knew of the Aethiopica references (mentioned them here!), but I'd only seen the brief 'statue' quote and not the whole thing, so didn't know that masks were mentioned too.
Interesting that the helmet is 'forged in one piece' - this suggests that it is indeed something like those 2nd-3rd century 'sports' helmets that enclose the whole head, rather than a normal helmet with an added mask.
However, there might be problems with this. There are suggestions that Julian was drawing on Heliodorus in his panegyric to Constantius: his highly exaggerated description of the siege of Nisibis in 340 is very similar to the siege-by-flooding in the novel, and quite unlike other accounts of the same conflict (which have Shapur using the river to undermine the walls, but not to surround the city with a lake!). Since this is the same panegyric that mentions the masked clibanarii, it could be that Julian was drawing on Helidorus's dramatic description for that too - the two accounts are quite similar...
Which doesn't mean that the bit about the masks is just invented, of course. But we should maybe remain a bit cautious about Julian and Heliodorus all the same.
Interesting that the helmet is 'forged in one piece' - this suggests that it is indeed something like those 2nd-3rd century 'sports' helmets that enclose the whole head, rather than a normal helmet with an added mask.
However, there might be problems with this. There are suggestions that Julian was drawing on Heliodorus in his panegyric to Constantius: his highly exaggerated description of the siege of Nisibis in 340 is very similar to the siege-by-flooding in the novel, and quite unlike other accounts of the same conflict (which have Shapur using the river to undermine the walls, but not to surround the city with a lake!). Since this is the same panegyric that mentions the masked clibanarii, it could be that Julian was drawing on Helidorus's dramatic description for that too - the two accounts are quite similar...
Which doesn't mean that the bit about the masks is just invented, of course. But we should maybe remain a bit cautious about Julian and Heliodorus all the same.
Nathan Ross
