international journal of military history and historiography 40 (2020) 50-73 IJMH brill.com/ijmh The Pantomime of War: Thoughts About the Horse Games of the Roman Army and the Origins of Imperial Mask Helmets Maxime Petitjean Sorbonne University, Paris, France [email protected] Abstract This paper explores the origins of the horse games (hippika gymnasia) of the Roman imperial army. It argues that the equestrian displays lengthily described by Arrian in his tactical treatise were borrowed from the Gallic and Iberian Celts, who formed the most important part of the Roman auxiliary cavalry at the end of the Republic and at the beginning of the Principate. Mask helmets were worn by the most renowned horsemen during these games. The first examples of such masks in Roman context can be found on triumphal representations celebrating victories over Celtiberian or Gallic foes. The evidence suggests that they were initially made of organic materials, like the over-modelled or plastered skull masks that could adorn public monuments in pre-Roman Gaul. From the end of the 1st century BC onward, they began to adopt the form of full metal helmets and were progressively adapted to the Greco-Roman taste. The idea that the hippika gymnasia were borrowed from the Roman equestrian parade called the lusus Troiae and that mask helmets were part of an old Italic tradi- tion should, therefore, be abandoned. Keywords Roman army – Roman cavalry – mask helmets – horse games – hippika gymnasia – lusus Troiae – headhunting – body mutilation – Roman pantomime © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi 10.1163/24683302-20190004Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 07:20:06AM via free access <UN> The Pantomime of War 51 It has long been acknowledged that the horse games of the Roman imperial army were heavily influenced by foreign practices.1 During the last two cen- turies BC, units of non-Roman auxiliaries gradually replaced elite Romans as the tactical cavalry unit in the Roman army.2 Much military knowledge was borrowed from these horsemen who were recruited in every parts of the Ro- man empire. In his tactical treatise, written in AD 136 and which is our main source on the Roman cavalry exercises, the governor of Cappadocia Flavius Ar- rianus warns his readership that he will often have to rely on Celtic loanwords: the reason for this is that, according to him, “the Romans have borrowed practices which are themselves Celtic, the Celtic cavalry being held in high esteem by them for battle”.3 We are thus told that the drills performed by the Roman horsemen were mainly based on Gallic and Iberian manoeuvres. They were certainly derived from aristocratic competitions, in which members of the mounted warrior class could make show of their courage and skilfulness.4 These equestrian displays, called in Greek hippika gymnasia, were for the most 1 See among many references: Everett Wheeler, “The occasion of Arrian’s Tactica”, Greek, Ro- man and Byzantine Studies 19 (4) (1978): 351–65; Jochen Garbsch, Römische Paraderüstungen (Munich, 1978), 35–7; Annabel K. Lawson, “Zu den römischen Reiterspielen”, Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 10 (1980): 173–84; Ann Hyland, Training the Roman Cavalry from Arrian’s Ars Tactica (London, 1993); Ann Hyland, “The development and training of cavalry in Greece and Rome”, in The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World, eds. Brian Campbell and Lawrence A. Tritle (New York, 2013), 512–26; Anna Busetto, “War as training, war as spec- tacle: the hippika gymnasia from Xenophon to Arrian”, in Ancient Warfare: Introducing Cur- rent Research, eds. Geoff Lee, Helene Whittaker and Graham Wrightson (Newcastle-upon- Tyne, 2015), vol. 1, 147–71. 2 Ann Hyland, Equus: The Horse in the Roman World (London, 1990), 170–8; Karen R. Dixon and Pat Southern, The Roman Cavalry (London, 1997), 22. On the most vexed question of the disappearance of the Roman elite cavalry, see lastly François Cadiou, “Cavalerie auxiliaire et cavalerie légionnaire dans l’armée romaine au ier s. a.C.”, in Les auxiliaires de l’armée romaine: des alliés aux fédérés. Actes du sixième Congrès de Lyon (23 – 25 octobre 2014), eds. Catherine Wolff and Patrice Faure (Lyon, 2016), 53–78. 3 Arr., Tact., 33, 1. Translations of Arrian’s cavalry treatise are now available in many languages. German: Franz Kiechle, “Die Taktik des Flavius Arrianus”, Bericht der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission 45 (1964): 87–107; Marcus Junkelmann, Reiter wie Statuen aus Erz (Mainz, 1996), 88–92 (trans. Franz Kiechle with modifications). English: James G. DeVoto, Flavius Arrianus Technê taktika (Tactical Handbook) and Ektaxis kata Alanôn (The Expedition Against the Alans) (Chicago, IL, 1993); Hyland, Training, 72–7 (trans. Frank Brudenall). French: Pierre- Olivier Leroy, Arrien. L’art tactique. Histoire de la succession d’Alexandre (Paris, 2017). Italian: Antonio Sestili, Lucio Flavio Arriano: l’arte tattica, trattato di tecnica militare (Rome, 2011). On the writing date of the treatise, see Arr., Tact., 44, 3 and Wheeler, “Occasion”. 4 Such tournaments are mentioned by Strabo, when he states that the Lusitanians and other Northern Iberian tribes “hold contests, for light-armed and heavy-armed soldiers and cavalry, international journal of military history and historiographyDownloaded 40 from (2020) Brill.com09/28/2021 50-73 07:20:06AM via free access <UN> 52 Petitjean important part marksmanship exercises, performed with either blunt tipped or real javelins. Riders involved in the show formed two teams and were supposed to realise complex manoeuvres, some of which were labelled after Celtic words such as the petrinos or the toloutegon, not to mention the “Cantabrian charge”, obviously taken from the Iberian tribe of the Cantabri.5 One can assume that such games became widespread in the Roman army when Emperor Augustus (27 BC–AD 14), the founder of the imperial monarchy, reformed the military organisation inherited from the Roman Republic and issued several constitu- tions on the training of the soldiers.6 By then, all the horsemen enlisted in the regular units of the Roman army were supposed to train in the same exercises. Nevertheless, such drills had certainly been known to the Romans for a long time since Gallic horsemen served the imperatores as auxiliaries from the 2nd century BC onward.7 It is tempting to assume that they were already practised by the mounted troops of Caesar and Octavian during the civil wars, or even in Antony’s Parthian expeditionary army, which comprised no less than 10,000 Gallic and Iberian horsemen in 36 BC.8 Yet, one of the most prominent piece of equipment implied in the hippika gymnasia, the famous Roman mask helmets, have not been linked to this ‘Celt- ic’ cultural background strongly emphasised by Arrian.9 Over one hundred of them have been discovered on various military sites of the Principate, from Britain to Syria.10 Arrian writes in his treatise: “Those among the soldiers who in boxing, in running, in skirmishing, and in fighting by squads” (Strab., iii, 3, 7; trans. H. L. Jones). See also Luc., Phars., i, 425 (with Kiechle, “Taktik”, 115) on the Sequani. 5 See Anna Busetto, “Linguistic adaptation as cultural adjustment: treatment of Celtic, Iberian, and Latin terminology in Arrian’s Tactica”, Journal of Ancient History 1 (2) (2013): 230–41. 6 Veg., Mil., i, 8 and 27. 7 For a historical overview, see Lionel Pernet, Armement et auxiliaires gaulois (iie et ier siè- cles avant notre ère) (Montagnac, 2010), 21–34. 8 Plut., Ant., 37, 4. 9 On the issues posed by the terms ‘Celts’/‘Celtic’ in modern historical and archaeological usage, see: Malcolm Chapman, The Celts: The Construction of a Myth (Basingstoke, 1992); Simon James, The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention? (London, 1999); Si- mon James, “Celts, politics and motivation in archaeology”, in Celts from Antiquity, eds. Gillian Carr and Simon Stoddart (Cambridge, 2002): 35–46. I will avoid such terminology, excepted when it is the best way to account for the mental representation conveyed by ancient sources. 10 According to Michael Vannesse and Sébastien Clerbois, “Les casques à visage (‘Gesicht- shelme’) romains. Nouvelles perspectives scientifiques”, Archäologisches Korresponden- zblatt 43 (3) (2013): 377, the current archaeological data allows us to identify 113 mask helmets, which have been preserved as a whole or in a fragmentary state. For her part, international journal of military history and historiographyDownloaded from Brill.com09/28/202140 (2020) 50-73 07:20:06AM via free access <UN> The Pantomime of War 53 are distinguished in rank or for their horsemanship are outfitted with iron or golden bronze helmets, in such a way that they attract the gaze of the specta- tors. Those helmets do not only protect, unlike those made for battle, the head and the cheeks, but also cover the whole face of the rider with openings at the eyes which, without hindering the view, provide a protection for the vision”.11 The mask helmets cited by Arrian remain one of the most fascinating enigmas of the Roman army: we do not know where they exactly came from and what was their original purpose. The oldest known Roman mask helmet dates back to the time of Augustus and comes from the site of Kalkriese, where Varus’ legions were destroyed by Arminius’ German troops in AD 9.12 The most wide- spread opinion assumes that these helmets were borrowed from Thracian or Hellenistic prototypes. Proponents of this theory emphasise the fact that the first helmets reproducing anatomical features like beard or hair appeared in Thrace, before spreading in the Hellenistic East and in Southern Italy.13 But three centuries separate the bearded mask helmet sculpted on the altar of Elizabeth Bartman (“The mock face of battle”, Journal of Roman Archaeology 18 [2005]: 99) lists about 130 pieces.