Did Roman cavalry wear face-masks in battle?

[caiusbeerquitius]

Unlike battle helmets, these defend not only the head and cheeks but, conforming to the faces of the riders, have openings for the eyes which do not hinder the vision and yet offer protection

No. That would be for Arrian, which may well be the result of a development from face masks used in battle to face masks used exclusively (if) in the hippika gymnasia. The Chassenard grave from he first half of the 1st c. CE contains a complete "battle-set" of armor. The chain mail was rusted into the mask helmet. This helmet actually had a 4mm thick iron mask (not flimsy). Would make sense of some sort to see a battle helmet with mask here. See also Kalkriese. (Junkelmann, Reiter Wie Statuen aus Erz, Mainz 1996, p. 51)

The translation is also not 100% correct, I think. Maybe one of our very-very-good-at-Greek forum members can help us out there:

τὰ κράνη δὲ ταῦτα οὐ καθάπερ τὰ ἐς μάχην πεποιημένα πρὸ τῆς κεφαλῆς καὶ τῶν παρειῶν προβέβληται μόνον, ἀλλ᾽ ἴσα πάντη τοῖς προσώποις πεποίηται τῶν ἱππέων, ἀνεῳγότα κατὰ τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς, ὅσον μὴ ἐπίπροσθεν τοῦ ὁρᾶν γιγνόμενα σκέπην παρέχειν τῇ ὄψει.

=> What battle helmets? Is it possible that he speaks of the helmets his upper-class audience knows, e.g. in Rome from the Praetorians or the vigiles? (unlikely, as in 41.1. he says that now the helmets are changed to iron versions:

ἐνθένδε ἤδη ὡς ἐς μάχην ὁπλίζονται θώραξί τε σιδηροῖς καὶ κράνεσι καὶ θυρεοῖς οὐ τοῖς κούφοις ἔτι.

)
However, this is slightly confusing, and one gets the impression that he perhaps does not fully understand what is going on there, especially in regard of his talks about the material of the helmets / iron, brass)

As far as I understand the greek text, it specifically says that the masks are "on all sides made to fit the face of the wearer" (=> which would support what I said above) and that the "openings for the eyes do not hinder sight". This then should show that what I said above about visibility tests etc. before we draw any conclusions is correct.

Again, these few words are IMO not enough to postulate that throughout the Imperial Period everywhere and at all times masked helmets were used only in the context of the Hippika Gymnasia. At Pergamon the masked helmets are, btw. depicted among regular battle gear. Might be a hint, just like Chassenard. I do not see (again) any sense in a normative like "Roman masked helmets were used only in context of the hippika Gymnasia". Maybe what Arrian describes is something which he saw performed by one specific unit, and other units handled this differently? Maybe there were regional differences, maybe it was handled differently at different times.

We should also keep in mind that we do not know since when the Hippika Gymnasia in that form existed. Ist it the same as the lusus troiae? Probably not, as we have things like the cantabrian attack etc. So possibly what we get presented by Arrian is something rather new which was just installed under Hadrian.

I think the normative "Roman masked helmets were used only in context of the hippika Gymnasia" does actually lead to an acceptance of a construct, where it IMO would be more interesting to make further investigations and to find out more about the details of the context of these fascinating Roman objects.


Brian
yes, of course that is a possibility. However, our first thought should be that it was cavalry mask.