On a Roman Visor Recently Discovered near Nijmegen, Holland Author(s): James Curle Source: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 5 (1915), pp. 81-86 Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/296291 . Accessed: 12/06/2014 17:00

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This content downloaded from 62.122.79.52 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 17:00:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ON A ROMAN VISOR HELMET RECENTLY DISCOVERED NEAR NIJMEGEN, HOLLAND.

(Plates vi- viii)

By JAMES CURLE.

The beautiful visor helmet illustrated in plates vi and vii is a recent addition to the fine collection of Roman antiquities belonging, to Mr. G. M. Kam of Nijmegen, Holland, to whom I am indebted for photographs and detailed particulars. The helmet was recovered from a gravel-bed on the left bank of the river Waal below Nijmegen. In the inside of the helmet among the clay and gravel lay a pair of bronze cheek-pieces overlaid with silver, which must have belonged to a helmet of a different pattern, and a number of melon- shaped beads of blue glass (fig. 35). The helmet belongs to a well-known group represented in this country by notable examples found at Ribchester (fig. 36) and Newstead (plate viii). It consists of a head-piece with a visor mask surmounted by a diadem. The portion covering the head is of iron, the mask and diadem are of bronze or brass. The main portion of the helmet is designed to follow closely the outline of the wearer's head. It has been much damaged by oxidisation, but enough remains to show that the surface of the metal has been skilfully hammered to represent elaborately dressed hair, such as may be seen on the iron helmet from Newstead,1 and on the well- known Bettenberge helmet2 at Stuttgart. At the back, protecting the neck, it has the usual projecting rim, which is still overlaid with a thin covering of bronze plated with silver. The diadem, which forms an integral portion of the head-piece, is a raised band of metal, from which project five busts representing two male and three female figures. Attached to the lower margin of this band by a single hinge is the visor mask, representing a youthful beardless face. By means of the hinge the mask was raised to enable the helmet to be placed on the head, and doubtless when in use it was also secured in its place by straps, or some such means of fastening, passed over the studs which project on the margin beneath the ears, and so attached to the head-piece. The eyes, nostrils, and mouth of the mask are open; the ears, as usual, are completely

1 Curle, A Roman Frontier Post, Glasgow, I9II, 2 Otto Benndorf, Antike Gesichtshelme und plate xxii. Sepulcralmiasken,Wien, I878, Taf. viii.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.52 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 17:00:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 82 ON A ROMAN VISOR HELMET covered. Across the right cheek is scratched a name, which Mr. Kam reads as MARCIANVS. The whole of the surface of the mask is overlaidwith silver, with the exception of the lips and the eyelids, which have been gilded. The same richnessof treatment is to be seen on the diadem, which, like the mask, has been silvered. The beaded lines which define its upper and lower marginare gilded, and gilding also appearson the drapery, the lips, eyelids, and hair of the busts.

FIG. 35. BRONZE CHEEK-PIECES AND BEADS OF BLUE GLASS FOUND NEAR NIJMIEGEN, HOLLAND (p. 81).

Altogether, the helmet is one of the most interesting examples of its class that have come to light. The specimensin which we have both head-piece and mask are extremely rare; still more rare is it to find one which illustratesso well the method by which the visor was attached to the helmet. No doubt, in most of these some form of hinge was employed to fasten the two portions to- gether. It is seen on the Bettenberge helmet; we have traces

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.52 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 17:00:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RECENTLY DISCOVERED NEAR NIJMEGEN, HOLLAND. 83 of it on the visor mask from Vechten at Leiden'; there are remains of it in the loop which projects from the head-piece of the iron helmet from Newstead. Another feature of the Nijmegen find is the richness of its decoration. It exemplifies admirably Arrian's description of helmets rich with gilding and decked with floating plumes, worn by Roman horsemen in their mimic encounters. In most of the finds known to us the gilding or silver work has disappeared, but the iron mask from Vechten was gilded, the Bettenberge helmet is covered with silver, and there are traces on the iron mask from Newstead which lead us to believe that it also was overlaid with silver. Such helmets, as we know from Arrian's descriptions, were designed to attract the particular attention of the spectators. 2 Enveloped in one of these head-pieces, clad in some brightly coloured tunic, the Roman horseman rode into the lists transformed into a godlike personage. Sometimes his helmet was merely a representation of the head uncovered. The iron helmet from Newstead (plate viii, no. i) represents a head with highly idealised features and elaborately dressed hair bound with a laurel . In the Bettenberge example again, the, head is represented with no covering, but above the forehead, forming a species of crest or diadem, rises a figure of an eagle with outstretched wings. On the other hand, in the helmet from Ribchester3 (fig. 36) we have a representation of a head crowned with a diadem, which again is surmounted by a helmet the surface of which is covered with figures embossed in relief, a helmet of the same type as those found without masks at Newstead4 and at Nikopolis in Bulgaria.5 lThe diadem which rises from the forehead on the Ribchester helmet is designed in two tiers. The lower of these represents the outline of a city wall with towers, a ' corona muralis.' On the upper, now partially destroyed, was a series of figures in relief, winged victories, a naked youth, a Triton, and, between them, youthful heads. Another example of a diadem is to be seen on the bronze visor mask from Zoufftigen, Luxemburg. 6 It appears to have been decorated with three medallions bearing figures in high relief, with rosettes in the intervening spaces. The greater portion of the central medallion with its figure of Cupid still remains. The diadem of the Nijmegen helmet, though unlike others known to us, is thus not altogether an unusual feature. In its origin the design is probably drawn from some such gemmed diadem as we see worn by on the' Blacas 'cameo in the British Museum, but

I Benndorf, op. cit. Taf. xiii (ia). 4 Curle, op. cit. plates xxvii and xxviii. 2 WS KaL' aurcp To6rC 7riyetv err oc6aS rwv 5 Benndorf, op. cit. Taf. xii (3a). dewlkvwvracs 6lets. Arrian, TeIXvq TaKrLK7'7,34, 2. 6 ibid. Taf. xii (ia). 3 Benndorf, op. cit. Taf. v and vi (3a).

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.52 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 17:00:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 84 ON A ROMAN VISOR HELMET whether it had any special significance is doubtful. In the decorative art of the first century the employment of medallions with busts in high relief is by no means uncommon; they are frequent subjects for the ' emblemata ' on silver vessels; and we see them on the Lauersfort phalerae and again on the series of phalerae from Xanten now in the British Museum, which were probably used as horse- trappings. Whether the busts were intended as portraits of

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oIC 36. BRONZE VISOR HELMET FROM RIBCHESTER (p. 83). members of the imperial house is an interesting question. The round, short-necked beardless heads of the male busts are Flavian in character, and to the Flavian period the helmet should probably be assigned, judging from the points of resemblance which it bears to the iron visor helmet and brass mask from Newstead. The two. latter cannot be much earlier than the reign of Domitian. That the heads are intended to represent Titus and Vespasian is possible. On the other hand, in neither case do they bear any imperial

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.52 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 17:00:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RECENTLY DISCOVERED NEAR NIJMEGEN, HOLLAND. 85 attribute ; they do not wear the laurel wreath, nor does the drapery, which is poorly executed, give any indication which might help to identify them. The dressing of the hair on the female busts does not present any distinctly Flavian feature, nor does the drapery gathered over the left shoulder, leaving the right shoulder bare, suggest a portrait of a lady of the imperial house. At the same time, it must not be forgotten that we are dealing with an object which is in all probability the product of a provincial workshop, in which niceties in the arrangement of the hair might well be overlooked. Indeed, the elaborate treatment of the hair on the Newstead and Bettenbergehelmets is purely decorative,and probably bears little resemblanceto the fashionablecoiffure of the time. That the helmets, of which the Nijmegen find is an example, are for the most part provincial, may be inferred from the fact that, with one exception, all the known specimens have been discovered north of the Alps. The sole exception is the bronze mask from Nola in the British Museum.1 It was found in a grave, and had been laid upon the face of the dead; it is none the less certain that it originally formed part of a helmet. In the mask we have a representationof a youthful face almost feminine in type. The eyes are open, the pupils being defined by thin circlets of metal; the nostrils also are open, and between the lips there is a very small aperture. The hair parted in the centre is arrangedin wavy masses above the ears, and appearsto be held back from the face by a band of twisted braid from which a small rosette projects above the fore- head in the middle.2 The head was covered with a helmet of which the front portionforms part of the mask. The rim of the maskshows quite distinctly the margin for the overlapping head-piece, and at the highest point above the foreheadthere is the same rectangular opening which is to be seen on one of the Newstead masks, and which was probably employed in fastening it to the head-piece. But the mask from Nola probablybelongs to an earlierperiod than that of any of the visor masksfound north of the Alps. Tischbein, who published the find, writing in 1795, states that the grave in which it was discoveredcontained ' severalvases of the finest sort.'3 Benndorf on the ground of this statement admits that the mask may be south Italian work of the third century B.C. It is obvious, however, that but for Tischbein's account of the circumstances of the find he would have assignedit to a later date. On stylistic grounds the mask can hardly be earlier than the first century B.C. The statement as to ' vases of the finest sort ' is therefore doubtful. Moreover, not only do we possess no definite particularsas to the

I Benndorf, op. cit. Taf. iii. ' lunula.' The mask is obviously of later date 2The same braiding of the hair is to be seen than the example from Nola: Benndorf, op. cit. on a mask foiind in the river Aluta near Rieska, Taf. x. Roumania. The rosette is replaced by a small 3Benndorf, op, cit. p. 15, n.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.52 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 17:00:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 86 ON A ROMAN VISOR HELMET. vases, but there is no reference to any such association in the records of the Payne-Knight collection from which the mask passed into the British Museum. The Nola mask is an isolated example, and although there certainly exists a representation of a visor helmet on the balustrade of Pergamum, which appears to belong to the same class, we are unable to present any series of examples, Greek or Italian, which might be linked in a typological series with the finds of Flavian date from Newstead and Nijmegen. How the Greek tradition so plainly, visible in the idealised features of the finer examples of these visor masks originated is uncertain. At present we can but ask the question whether it was carried down to imperial times and reached the northern frontier through the armourer's craft.

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.52 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 17:00:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions J.R.S. vol. v (I915). PLATE VI.

ROMAN VISOR IIELMET RECENTLY DISCOVERED NEAR NIJMEGEN, HOLLAND (p. 8I).

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.52 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 17:00:17 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions J.R.S. vol. V (ii95). PLATE VII.

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