Roman Use of the Attic Helmet

[Celtic505]

Why go to the trouble of making such elaborate and beautiful pieces such as the Guisborough helmet (which I consider to be an Attic Helm) or the embossed hair cavalry helmets, (which look to be evolved or based on Attic types) and not actually make the real thing, yet depict it on all of your art? I know the Romans did some crazy things and were masters at propaganda but it just seems as though they would not consistantly use the same helmet it their military imagery without them ever being in use by soldiers. Is there any other items in Roman military imagery and sculpture which is thought to be artistic convention? Officers and high ranking soldiers had to have worn some kind of helmet during combat, as everything about their dress was to show their rank and status, I can't picture an officer putting on a montefortino or imperial gallic helmet, like the rest of his men, to me it seems most likely that an attic helmet, or attic-like helmet such as Cavalry types were used, with crests to show their rank or maybe even Italo-Corinthian helmets. Just my opinions.

[Caratacus]

There are well over 400 (not 200) known examples of Roman helmets of all types - and probably at least as many in private hands (the figure of 400 represents only those I have managed to track down and get a photo of from somewhere). In no case is there anything that resembles the type of helmet that we see depicted on the Trajanic column or (for sheer detail) the Cancellaria relief of the Prætorian Guard (officers all? Maybe, nothing there to say so, really, apart from the chap in the front centre rank).

It's a well known phenomenon that guard units often use archaic forms of gear as a statement of their elite status. Take the British Brigade of Guards, for example - last time I looked no-one was actually wearing a red coat and a bearskin to war, nor a polished steel cuirass!

One post above however hits the nail on the head - just how effective would such a piece of gear be? Until someone tries it out, we won't really be any more than guessing as to whether the Romans actually used the things.

Caractacus
(Mike T)

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Has any one tried using a Attic style helmet either in mock combat or on horseback to see how functional it is?

I do not necessarily mean taking a gladius or spear to it and cracking away at it but, more along the line of wearing it while on horseback cantering/galloping around and in dismounted mock combat to see how it wears.

The testings might shed some light whether it was a parade helmet or truly a functional combat helmet.

I would think that a attic helmet would cost many times that of a regular helmet, and if covered in precious metals like gold and silver I am sure were stripped and broken down for their metals and sold. That and the fact that there were far less officers in the military might account for why we have not seen any yet on digs and finds.

Thoughts?..

V/r
Mike

I have often come to the same conclusion about high quality items....!

Also, those elaborate helmets would offer protection in the form of crumple zones and strengthening through thickness I would imagine, so perhaps there is some practicality to them?

[Matthew Amt]

Various types of Attic helmets are common finds from the very early Republic (or before), from Samnite tombs, etc. They're perfectly functional--why shouldn't they be? As long as the metal is thick enough, any spiffy or gold-plated officer's helmet would protect him just fine. Relying on a reconstruction to prove or disprove this would depend on getting a VERY accurate reconstruction made, down to the alloy and very subtle details of thickness and such. I'd be leery of any conclusions!

While artwork may include archaisms, it's clear from archeology that actual objects could as well, such as the Autun helmet (sp?).

Also remember that legionary and auxiliary helmets usually survive either because they've been discarded or because they've been chucked in rivers or lakes as offerings. That's not the sort of thing to happen to an officer's helmet, which were much less common objects to begin with. Votive offerings in water is a provincial practice, by and large, more likely to be done by guys who grew up outside of Italy, or who at least lived out in the boonies for 20 or 30 years and picked up local traditions. Tribunes and legates, mostly proper Roman aristocrats, would have been raised in the Hellenistic tradition, and any offerings they made to the gods would have been left at a temple. Well, a few generations or centuries down the road, and everything piled up in a temple is a nice source of scrap metal, whereas anything chucked in a river is still waiting for archeologists! That's why we don't have surviving officer helmets.

But we DO still have lots of evidence, it's just pictoral! Needs a little caution, obviously, but it's evidence none the less.

Matthew

[Tarbicus]

Every found Roman helmet can trace its typology back to earlier Italic types, Greek, or other cultures such as the Gauls. If the aristos held Hellenistic practices with such high regard they'd surely be wearing helmets of that identity, surely? We also see much different examples of helmets in individual portrait sculpture, but not a single classic Attic type. The Autun helmet is a good example; strip away the fancy bits and you have a classic Apulo-Corinthian. It's only on the usual grand propaganda pieces we see the Attic being worn and, as said elsewhere, these do not seem to represent officers. The only found helmet to resemble the Attic in basic features is the Italic A, but that seems to be a mutated Thracian in itself with the 'peak' omitted and no top crest. Even murals seem to show officers wearing non-Attic style helms.

One grander relief showing clearly an officer is a good example of how the idea that officers wore attic style helms seems to me to be so wrong:
http://astro.temple.edu/~tlclark/lorica ... sdet3a.jpg
And a statue clearly not showing an Attic type:
http://astro.temple.edu/~tlclark/lorica ... tmarsa.jpg

Even this statuette of a legionary seems to show him wearing a helmet more akin to the Italic A:
http://www.romancoins.info/London.JPG

Another example from Rhodes:
http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/Files/thum ... ll_905.jpg

Another in Rome; look at the figure facing to the right of the photo's helmet (note also the soldier in the background's helmet, which bears a great resemblance to the Italic A):
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v204/ ... 05copy.jpg

The Autun helmet, which I personally think is likely an officer's helmet but is continually dismissed as purely decorative based on IMHO modern expectations, and is probably only as impractical to wear as the Guttmann Niedermormter or a Samurai helmet:
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b242/ ... helmet.jpg

Officers wearing Attic helmets is a myth and factoid, as far as I can tell. In fact, in sculpture it seems to be the caligati who wore them, which makes the absence of hard evidence dug up from the ground even more compelling toward the notion they just didn't exist IMHO.

Apart from the Apulo-Corinthian, this is a classic Hellenistic helmet more likely to be worn by an officer, surely:
http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p273 ... COman2.jpg

[Celtic505]

THANK YOU TARBICUS! I've been looking for a picture of that statue from Rhodes, ever since I read about it in Ospreys Armies of the Carthaginian wars, I've seen many representations of it, but can never find the actual statue the helmet's based on with the two figures on the forehead with hoplons facing eachother.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I would say that helmet on the statue from Rhodes bears a great resemblence to the helmets on display in Corfu posted by Gioi.
Hellenistic but not Attic, if I am on the right track?

[Tarbicus]

You mean these, Byron?
http://usera.imagecave.com/system/showp ... &a=Album-1

I'd say so as well.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

You mean these, Byron?
http://usera.imagecave.com/system/showp ... &a=Album-1

I'd say so as well.

Yes!

[Celtic505]

If officers and aristocrats were supposed to buy their own equipment (and im ashamed to say I don't know how long this practice lasted) wouldnt they be able to go to a blacksmith and have them make whatever headgear they wanted? Perhaps there was a lot of diversity in officers helmets like the sculptures show because some wanted different styles or wanted to outdo one another.

[Tarbicus]

Perhaps there was a lot of diversity in officers helmets like the sculptures show because some wanted different styles or wanted to outdo one another.

What diversity? As far as I can tell there are only two types; Apulo-Corinthian and Thracian.

[MeinPanzer]

Another example from Rhodes:
http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/Files/thum ... ll_905.jpg

THANK YOU TARBICUS! I've been looking for a picture of that statue from Rhodes, ever since I read about it in Ospreys Armies of the Carthaginian wars, I've seen many representations of it, but can never find the actual statue the helmet's based on with the two figures on the forehead with hoplons facing eachother.

This example from Rhodes is Hellenistic and has no relation to the Romans whatsoever.

[Celtic505]

Well, the third being Attic types, or whatever they wanted made. But I have to agree with you on the Etrusco-Corinthian helmets, this later Cavalry helmet http://www.romancoins.info/Frankfurt-0611.JPG looks like a typical cavalry helmet with decorations and a face above the opening almost as if a play on the older etrusco-corinthian helmets. It just seems to me to have been inspired by the latter type of helmet, and the wearer must have been familiar with them if it is, meaning that it must've been worn still into the period. Or I could be way off.

[Tarbicus]

This example from Rhodes is Hellenistic and has no relation to the Romans whatsoever.

So you're saying there's no way on earth a Roman officer wouldn't model his appearance on a Hellenistic style?

[MeinPanzer]

This example from Rhodes is Hellenistic and has no relation to the Romans whatsoever.

So you're saying there's no way on earth a Roman officer wouldn't model his appearance on a Hellenistic style?

I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that that piece is often ambiguously cited (in books and on this forum) about the Republican Romans as evidence for how Roman officers looked, usually without mentioning that it is simply a panoply for a Rhodian officer. It has no direct relation to the Romans.