Roman helmets: Imperial Gallic/Italic and Ridge - comparisons and sources

[Nathan Ross]

Again, it is not subjective but objective, it is science material.

I think any scientist would admit that without an object of study and the ability to accurately measure and compare it, there can be no 'science material'.

Romans, on the other did, did have both types of helmet - and they chose the ridge type, for various reasons. But unless we believe that they were poor, or disorganised (and they were clearly neither) or suffering from some mass outbreak of stupidity or incompetence, there would be no logical reason for them to mass produce an ineffective helmet, and go on doing so for over a century. That is the historical fact from which this discussion must proceed.

There was a simultaneous decline in standards of manufacture.

One aspect of scholarship in the last 20 or 30 years has been a considerable reinterpretation of what 'decline' is, and how we might measure it.

the usage of the Spangenhelme is well attested in this period

By the regular Roman army? I don't think so. Suggested, maybe, but not attested. No helmet of this type has been found in a military context securely dated before the 6th century.

you are trying with dialectics.

I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by that!

the borders were broken on the Rhine and in the East. Very far from being a florid situation.

[Edit] - we should also consider that the borders collapsed massively in the 3rd century during the 'crisis' period. The Roman armies that were annihilated at Abrittus and Barbalissos, and who let the barbarians devastate Gaul and Thrace, were equipped on the principiate model with single-bowl helmets.

Twenty years later, Diocletian had rebuilt the Roman army and it was entirely effective in defeating every enemy that Rome faced on every front. He restored the frontiers, and twenty years later still Constantine expanded them by reconquering part of Dacia.

On a performance-analysis level, the army of the dominate beats the army of the later principiate hands down!