Optio Helmets, Feather Tubes and Feathers

[Gaius Colletti]

I remember reading that as well Jurjen. Though I thought that the Montefortino type had more of a draping horsehair "crest" rather than the traditional crest we think of in the Imperial era

[jvrjenivs]

I remember reading that as well Jurjen. Though I thought that the Montefortino type had more of a draping horsehair "crest" rather than the traditional crest we think of in the Imperial era

Sure they had, most possibly also with feathers, as suggested above. Nevertheless, it does seem that the later crestae evolve from this practise, doesn't it?

[PhilusEstilius]

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When we think of the Montefortino the crest simply came out of the top knot at the point of the helmet similar to this type I did some time back.

[ParthianBow]

Secondly, we have an interesting quote in this respect, from Caesar (I think it is his 'Gallic wars') where he talked about a surprise attack and mention that his men 'doesn't have the time to take of the shield covers from their shield and put the crestae on their helmets' e.g. this would suggest that during the march the cresta (or in that time loose feathers) were safely put into the bag, but on battle preparation they were put onto their helmets.

Jurjen, what a fantastic little detail. I have no doubt in my mind that that's how the legionaries would have carried their feathers. I have a Montefortino with the black feather crest, including the three upright feathers noted by Polybius of mid-Republican hastati. It's fine to wear the helmet with the feathers for short periods, but they are easily broken, and if it's windy - as on Hadrian's Wall - they last mere minutes.

By the end of my training for the Hadrian's Wall walk and the walk itself, during which I had marched in kit for more than 300 miles, I had concluded that either legionaries carried their feathers in a pack, and used them only in battle, OR their feathered crests were reduced to stumps within a few days of being on campaign. This discovery also made me wonder if this difficulty in using feathered crests was one of the reasons that soldiers stopped using them. Nowadays, I only put the feathers in just before I do a talk, or am about to have my picture taken etc.

[Renatus]

Secondly, we have an interesting quote in this respect, from Caesar (I think it is his 'Gallic wars') where he talked about a surprise attack and mention that his men 'doesn't have the time to take of the shield covers from their shield and put the crestae on their helmets' e.g. this would suggest that during the march the cresta (or in that time loose feathers) were safely put into the bag, but on battle preparation they were put onto their helmets.

Jurjen, what a fantastic little detail. I have no doubt in my mind that that's how the legionaries would have carried their feathers.

Unfortunately, this is based on a mistranslation. The passage is in Bell. Gall. 2.21:

. . . ut non modo ad insignia accommodanta, sed etiam ad galeas induendas scutisque tegimenta detrudenda tempus defuerit.

' . . . that there was no time, not only to put on decorations, but even to put on helmets and remove covers from shields.'

Insigne means 'sign or badge of office or honour, a decoration', not 'crest'.

[Graham Sumner]

Ben Wrote:

This discovery also made me wonder if this difficulty in using feathered crests was one of the reasons that soldiers stopped using them.

Hi Ben

In actual fact if we go from the pictorial sources as I mentioned earlier in this thread, it is the horsehair crest which drops out of fashion not the feathered crest. However they sometimes show feathered crests with horsehair tails.

Graham.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

I'm interested in hearing more about that Graham, as I am aware of several depictions of Late Roman soldiers that (may) have horsehair crests.

[AMELIANVS]

It seems horsehair crests returned into fashion during late antiquity but during Principate they were largely replaced by feathered crests although I don't believe that horsehair variation was not used at all during that period.

[ParthianBow]

Renatus: that's annoying - but thanks for the clarification. I stand by my theory, however, that legionaries would not have had their feathered crests mounted all the time - they just can't stand up to the battering of wind and rain.

Graham: I should have been clearer, sorry. I meant the reason that legionaries stopped using feathered crests.

[Renatus]

I stand by my theory, however, that legionaries would not have had their feathered crests mounted all the time - they just can't stand up to the battering of wind and rain.

I don't disagree with you. It seems entirely sensible. However, that is an argument from practicality, not from Caesar.

[A_Volpe]

I'm with the general consensus that's already been presented, there are a number of helmets found archaeologically that have side tubes, as well as overwhelmingly rings on the fronts and backs of helmets, but really nothing survives that mentions crests or what they were made of and what they were used for, or for how long. So, as always, it brings up more questions than answers! Frustrating indeed.

I recently have been wondering if the front & back rings on helmets may instead have been part of a strapping method for route marching. But, it's all a bunch of guesswork.

My own duo denarii on what distinguishes an officer vs grunt (or whatever), is not as much as what they're wearing or not wearing or allowed to wear, but being able to recognize who these people are visually, facial recognition. There's a few records that survive that seems to suggest edging into the 2nd and 3rd centuries that physical details of the recruits and soldiers are being recorded - things like scars, hair color, complexion; but that also much of the Empire the soldiers are 'in service' for 20-25 years. So, if you're in a unit for even 5 years you learn who's who by recognition pretty easily. We tend to see a similar idea with sculpture and coins - Learn to recognize who the current Emperor is by the coinage he's minting to pay you to be his soldier; and we see a similar notion with tombstones - Romans put a lot of emphasis in the "Remember Me" aspect of the afterlife, with very detailed portraiture, busts, and the Fayum portraits. (in some examples of tombstones it appears there is less emphasis and "accuracy" detail on clothing, with a very detailed head put on a "generic" or stock body; some portraiture in the 18th, 19th centuries seemed to be doing the exact same thing!).

We also have the "traditional" notion from the Republic that the Optio was "Chosen" by the commanders to be the Optio, which of course, meant "chosen" and is the origin of the word "optional". It seems to indicate a pretty honorable or respected position, so, being singled out amongst your peers, you'd be recognized pretty quickly. I'd imagine the same thing would be true if Signifer and Aquilifer…Besides, they're the ones in charge of your pay…So, better be able to recognize them and butter-up to them...

We also have to be very cautious to not assume the Romans were "uniform" or cookie-cutter identical in clothing and gear the way we tend to think of it nowadays (and even the concept of "uniform" has only really been a thing for the past 200-300 years, not 1200), so it doesn't necessarily take too long to recognize your friends in their armor (or not) by their mannerisms and their gear, which is going to vary a little bit.

There's also the notion of Positioning - where you stand, also referred to from earlier Greek and its influence in the 16th, 17th century as one's "Dignity", in some aspects it determine where you stand within your formation, based on experience or social status or both (I'm generalizing, it gets pretty confusing as it is) - So if you're promoted to Optio, you're likely to be in specific areas and doing specific things that is different from everyone else, so that can be another distinguishing feature everyone else can "look at" and recognize. Social standing in the Legion was apparently still a major aspect even in the Empire. (old habits die hard, eh?) - I imagine it's similar to a Corporate office - The secretary is doing specific tasks in a specific area, compared to a cubicle monkey or the mailroom guy. When someone gets pro/de-moted, "everyone" knows pretty quickly.

We also still can't say with absolute certainty that every single soldier was wearing armor, let alone metal armor, nor how "often" they wore it either. The notion of every single soldier fully armored and armed is modernistic without a lot of solid supportive evidence. (on a slight side-track here, something like a Triumphal Arch, yeah, might as well make an impression and have "everyone" in awesome looking armor, it's making a loud public statement not necessarily an accurate record of what happened in that exact moment in the battle or whatever - modern similar example is that George Washington guy crossing that river painting, or that Napoleon dude with his raging and bucking…Horse…).

I'm willing to bet we reenactors today wear our armor far more often and for longer in the day than the Romans may have ever bothered with. It's not necessarily a "bad" thing, I mean, how many times do we all get to wear awesome metal armor all day anyway? (it may be a bit misleading, but, I won't stop someone from the "experience" either)

That leads to another consideration - There may be "regional" differences in armor, attire, and distinguishing ranks in the Legions. Since my group (Leg. III Cyrenaica) researches the legion as it was in Egypt, that brings a huge wrench into the gears for what we think a "standard" Roman army looked like or even did. Nothing as far as I've ever been able to find in over 10 years of studying this stuff now, has hinted at what kind of "armor" the Egyptian legions and auxiliaries wore…If they even bothered. You'd think with the thousands of written records that's been found they'd have mentioned something. Most of these troops seemed to spend much of their time guarding lonely guard towers and posts along trade routes and keeping an eye on mines and ports. Save for the somewhat frequent ethic problems in Alexandria itself, the occasional hiccups with Numidian attacks in the south, not much else seems to be going on - So, why bother wearing armor all day, let alone in the desert! Since Egypt was considered the "Greek East", Greek is far more common than Latin is in much of the records, that means Greek equivalent names of ranks are predominant. Optio and Centurion are mentioned here and there, but other "ranks" like Curator shows up, a lot. Curator doesn't seem to show up in Germanic records or Vindolanda tablets….

NOW. As for the feathers thing. Who knows. As has been mentioned, even less is known about what kind of feathers, if they used feathers. Some of the sculptures IMHO seem to indicate -wool- crests, not unlike Napoleonic flair. Having [feathers] on the sides of the helmet seems to be an "Italic" thing, look at Republic and earlier [Etruscan] helmets - again, that might be indicative of a regional or traditional "look" and less on "specific rank indicator". There is also the Legion V Alaude… "Larks". Does that mean they wore Lark feathers? Or did it mean they were "fast and flighty"? We don't know! Frustrating!

There are IIRC two Centurion tombstones both seeming to show transverse "brush" crests on their helmets…One seems to look "feathery", the other pretty straight and thin, so maybe horsehair. Unfortunately I do not know the names of those centurions so can't point them out.

I do agree that crests of any kind are pretty obnoxious to wear on a helmet. I have had a "brush" horsehair crest, and have a "ponytail" on my earlier Late Republic kit Montefortino helmet. They get in the way, catch the wind, add weight (although the weight thing - might be a wrong material there, also don't know). One of the helmets attributed to a Batavian unit (IIRC) seemed to have had a -wig- of braided hair added to it. Bling to the next level there.

[Renatus]

There are IIRC two Centurion tombstones both seeming to show transverse "brush" crests on their helmets…One seems to look "feathery", the other pretty straight and thin, so maybe horsehair. Unfortunately I do not know the names of those centurions so can't point them out.

The two centurions are Marcus Petronius Classicus (feathers) and Titus Calidius Severus (?horsehair).

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[Graham Sumner]

Hi Evan

When the subject was first mentioned to me I was equally sceptical and rushed off to look at some familiar sources, which I was always convinced showed horsehair crests. Many on closer inspection turned out to be nothing of the sort and showed feathers. Others were due to the nature of the media doubtful and could have been either.

Ben, This applied to legionary crests too.

Michael the centurion horsehair crest you have shown is one of the best examples and well known. However I struggled to find anything better. What confuses things is that in many cases what I had thought where horsehair crests turned out just to be horsetails with feathered crests.

Andy, you raise some interesting points which apply to all equipment in general not just to crests. Sadly the archaeological record is heavily weighted in favour of sites in North West Europe, the area best studies and published. I imagine it was pretty hard trying to equip a legionary of any period from finds based just from Egypt. Although ironically the survival of textiles and paintings from there is better than anywhere else. There are also some good painted tombstones as Pavel has shown.

Evan perhaps you could start a new thread on helmet crests alone. If there are any examples of horsehair crests from the Imperial era, they can be added there.

Graham.

[A_Volpe]

Aaaah! Those are the dudes, thanks Renatus