Gladiator Helmets.

[john m roberts]

First of all, we must remember that the gladiatorial institution lasted at least seven hundred years, and practices changed over that time. The few depictions we have from the Republic show an assortment of helmets, mostly military, some foreign, etc. Their designs seem to have become standardized around Augustan times, but they were still open-faced. The vast majority of the depictions we have are 1st-3rd century, and they are quite standardized. Briefly: the helmet worn by the Thracian and hoplomachus has an arched crest. That of the Thracian terminates in a griffin's head. That of the hoplomachus lacks the griffin. The crest of the murmillo is angular. As to the Samnite, he belongs to the Republican period. Some Republican reliefs show a fighter with an open-faced helmet with the beginnings of that angular crest, and this is probably the samnite. The secuor's helmet, as stated above, was specific to that combat. The type Marcus Junkelmann thinks is the essedarius and I think is the "Gaul" (they may in fact have been one and the same)had a simple, smooth, crestless helmet with side feathers, open-faced in early times, visored later on. The equites had a helmet similar to the Thracian/hoplomachus, but without a crest and sporting side-feathers. The provocator had a helmet that was essentially a visored weisenau, without a crest but with side feathers.
There was a tendency in everything Roman to grow and become exaggerated. Thus brims grew wider, crests grew higher, cheek plates grew into full visors, etc. This tendency was exacerbated by the growth of the amphitheaters. As the audience got farther away, the attributes of the gladiators grew more elaborate to give them more to see.
That said, we occasionally see helmets that are vriations of these categories. The Zliten mosaic shows a pair of provocators with gigantic crests on their helmets, for instance, but the above holds true for 95% of the surviving examples.