Innholdsfortegnelse for AW XVIII.2 i Ancient Warfare Magazine

If you are one of those people watching the apparent endless videos on Youtube discussing the infrastructure of the Netherlands, you'll know there are more bicycles than people here, and hardly anybody wears a biycle helmet. To be fair, that is changing, which is likely a good thing. The reason I bring this up is that, you guessed it, I recently had an impactful experience that demonstrated why wearing a helmet while cycling can be a very good idea. Fortunately, the result was only a light concussion and the effects have worn off as I write this. But it is a damned odd coincidence that this situation presented itself just as we were working on a theme about helmets! I'm obviously not going to suggest that the dangers of cars,…

A Roman-era skeleton uncovered in York, England shows bite marks on a hip bone consistent with an attack by a lion or tiger, according to a new study. The skeleton, ‘Individual 6DT19’, was unearthed at Driffield Terrace at a cemetery thought to contain gladiators’ graves from the Roman city of Eboracum. He was a male aged 26 to 35 years and 171.9cm (± 3.37cm) tall. He had been decapitated with a single cut between the second and third cervical vertebrae. Notably, the researchers observed that “Peri-mortem trauma was present in the form of a series of small depressions on both sides of the pelvis, located close to the iliac crest and spines.” The depressions and indentations were consistent with the bite of a lion or tiger. While our sources describe…

Fortunately, this lack of archaeological evidence is compensated to a degree by the written sources and the famous representations of thousands of soldiers on the surviving palace reliefs. The fact that the depictions of equipment on these reliefs closely matches those few items that have been found, indicates these are a good complement. Helmets for the army The numbers of helmets required by the Assyrian army on a yearly basis, and by extension produced by the Assyrian arms industry over time, can be judged from the estimated size of the Assyrian army, but from inscriptions enumerating captured booty as well. The Letter to the God (Ashur) of Sargon II (721–705 BC) lists the booty captured during Sargon's eighth campaign (714 BC) in the temple of Haldi at Musasir: 33 silver…

The helmet was one of the most important pieces of kit a Roman soldier had. As such, a great deal of work went into ensuring that each piece of the helmet, from the bowl to the ear guards, was made to a high standard. The blacksmiths creating these were extremely skilled craftsmen. The helmet bowl The helmet bowl and its associated neck guard formed the foundation of the helmet; all the other furniture was attached to this. The earliest helmets were of copper alloy construction and were raised. That is to say, a sheet of metal was formed over a solid object by repeated cycles of annealing and hammering. The added advantage of this process is that it hardens the alloy, and there is evidence that even before the Roman…

The appearance of Roman soldiers in armour is well known from numerous sculptural depictions. These reliefs provide a window into what these soldiers looked like – although these images were probably idealized rather than highly realistic, particularly those in the heart of Rome. Many early reconstructions of the appearance of Roman arms and armour were based on these sculptures, but did not consider that the figures would originally have been brightly painted with details that time has since taken from us. Some provincial depictions may have provided a more accurate depiction, for an audience more familiar with what Roman soldiers actually looked like. The depictions of Trajan's army on two different but contemporaneous monuments illustrate how different the portrayal of the same army could be. On Trajan's Column in Rome,…

‘Segmental’ helmets, a broad family of helmets made in multiple pieces, are characterized by the fundamental similarities – and distinctions – in their construction. The most common forms are the ‘band helmet’, ‘ridge helmet’, ‘lamellar’ or ‘splint helmet’, and spangenhelm. A ‘band helmet’ and ‘ridge helmet’ are constructed in the same way, with one longitudinal band running all the way along the helmet from the brow to the nape, holding its two (or four) ‘bowl-forming’ plates together, differentiated by the shaping of a ridge in the band itself. A spangenhelm differs in that its ‘bands’ or ‘straps’ (spangs) begin at the lower rim and end at the crown of the bowl, being joined by a finial, instead of continuing all the way across the bowl's arc. A ‘lamellar’ or ‘splint’…

Several verses of the Hebrew Bible have been used to illustrate Jewish service in foreign armies at a relatively early period. Some scholars have claimed that the ‘Kings Law’ (Deuteronomy 17:16) was intended to prevent the habit of providing the Pharaohs with Hebrew troops in return for horses for the Judaean kings’ armies. Another assertion is that this law was conceived specifically in opposition to the deeds of King Manasseh (r. 697–643 BC) who may have conducted such transactions despite the fact that most of his subjects wished for the men to be returned. If true, this is possibly the earliest evidence for Jewish service in Pharaonic armies, and the only evidence which implies such service under the 25th dynasty (744–656 BC). The most famous evidence for Jewish military service…

Gladiators 1st-5th centuries AD By François Gilbert ISBN: 978-1472862761 Osprey (2024) - £14.99 www.ospreypublishing.com In this volume of Osprey's Elite series, Gilbert explores gladiators from their ‘heyday’ through to their decline – the first to fifth centuries AD. This is a follow up to his own volume (Elite 246, 2022) exploring gladiators from the fourth to the first centuries BC. The gladiators of the period under examination here are those that people most picture when you use the term gladiator – the retiarius, secutor, thraex, murmillo, and others – and Gilbert explores each type in turn. Perhaps due to popular misrepresentations of gladiatorial combat on screen, gladiatorial combat is largely misunderstood. Gilbert is a great start to disabuse those misunderstandings. Firstly, gladiatorial combat (munera, sing. munus) was not a free-for-all…

Archaeologists working in Sicily have uncovered new sections of fortified walls that dramatically alter the known perimeter of the ancient Greek city of Selinous before its fall and destruction by the Carthaginians in 409 BC. Recent excavations by the Parco Archeologico di Selinunte have revealed the ancient city's limit lay much farther north than previously thought. Based on the new finding, researchers estimated Selinous’ population at the end of the 5th century BC at 26,000 living within the city, with an additional 90,000 in the surrounding territory. Portions of the northern fortifications, including a gateway measuring 3m across, leading to a sacred road and necropolis, have been excavated. Historians believe this vulnerable entrance may have been the route taken by Hannibal Mago's forces during their 10-day siege, described by Diodorus…

None of this is to say that combat trauma did not exist in the ancient world. Ancient combatants did experience traumatic responses to battlefield experiences, even if we cannot easily access them in a quantitative diagnostic framework. Combat trauma may even have been more common in ancient societies, which required the routine military participation of adult males in close-quarters combat. In the case of Epizelus, and perhaps other episodes, we can talk in general about combat trauma without issuing a formal diagnosis. Epizelus The story goes as follows: “In the battle of Marathon … an Athenian soldier, Epizelus the son of Cuphagoras, was fighting bravely in the melee when suddenly he was deprived of both his eyes, neither having been hit in the body nor with a missile, and from…

Imitating Julius Caesar and Augustus, Claudius had determined to exhibit a naumachia to celebrate the recent completion of a tunnel through the mountainside to facilitate the drainage of Lake Fucinus into the river Liris. While Julius Caesar and Augustus had held their naumachia in purpose-built venues, Claudius staged his naval battle on the lake, adorned for the occasion with an encircling wooden wall and temporary stands along the foreshore. Claudius perhaps sought to surpass the spectacle of Augustus’ naumachia in August 2 BC, when 30 triremes and biremes, complemented with roughly 3000 combatants surplus to the rowers, took to the waters. Upon the waters of Lake Fucinus, Claudius launched two opposing fleets of fifty ships each. Aboard these triremes and quadriremes were some 19,000 men according to Tacitus, and specifically…

While the Assyrian army seems to have been unstoppable, with its huge numbers and vast supporting industry, there are accounts of its defeat. One such defeat occured during a campaign waged by the Assyrian king Sennacherib (r. 705-681 BC) against an otherwise unknown Pharaoh Sethos, priest of Hephaestus, usually identified with the Egyptian god Ptah. No contemporary source mentions a pharaoh of this name, nor is there an obvious match for this campaign. Sennacherib's son Esarhaddon unsuccesfully campaigned against Egypt in 674 BC. This campaign, one of Assyria's worst defeats, may be the best candidate for a match. According to Herodotus, Sethos “neglected the warrior class of the Egyptians” and “treated them with contempt, as if he had been unlikely to need their services”. When the invasion came, the army…

The tombstone of Nectovelius was discovered in 1834 near the fort of Mumrills on the Antonine Wall. For that reason, it has been dated to AD 140–164, when the frontier was occupied. Some have argued for a slightly earlier date based on some unusual elements in the inscription, most notably DIS M for Dis Manibus (‘to the spirits of the departed’) rather than the more conventional abbreviation form D M. DIS M is known on only four other inscriptions from Britain, two or three of which are older than Hadrian's reign. If the tombstone does pre-date the frontier's construction, there is no clear reason why it is on the Antonine Wall. The life of Nectovelius The inscription reveals some key details about the life of Nectovelius. He died aged 29…

More than 100 horse skeletons have been uncovered during excavations in Stuttgart, Germany, offering rare insight into the use of equids for cavalry in the Roman army. The discovery was made during a construction project on Düsseldorfer Straße. Dating to the second century AD, the skeletons belonged to horses used by a Roman cavalry unit stationed at Hallschlag near Bad Cannstatt, one of the most important military bases in southwest Germany at the time. Sarah Roth, the archaeologist in charge, explained that around 700 horses were likely maintained for the 500 cavalrymen based there. Dead animals were buried about 400m from the fort and 200m from the civilian settlement, placed individually in shallow pits. The horses died from a variety of causes: from illness, injury or other non-combat reasons over…

In the autumn of 218 BC, the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca crossed the Alps to attack Rome. Celtic tribes in the Po Valley immediately sided with him. During the subsequent Second Punic War, Hannibal tried to turn Roman allies against their overlord, and although there were several turncoats, he ultimately failed. That Hannibal took elephants with him, makes the story of his crossing of the Alps fascinating, and many scholars have tried to identify the route of this legendary operation. In this article, we will see why this question cannot be answered, and as we will see at the end, the main question is not where, but why Hannibal invaded Italy. Historical topography What has become a legend, was in fact a normal military operation. There was nothing unusual about…

Varus’ invasion was nothing new. Augustus had been pressing the Germanic frontier forward since at least 12 BC. In 16 BC, a combination of three Germanic tribes had crossed the Rhine and defeated the consul Marcus Lollius, even capturing the eagle of one of the legions (Velleius Paterculus, 2.97.1). They then retreated back over the Rhine before they could be defeated. Nero Claudius Drusus began campaigning in Germania in 12 BC and won a series of victories, although his achievements were halted by his accidental death in 9 BC. Drusus’ brother, Tiberius (the future emperor), took over and continued campaigning until 6 BC. He declared Germania was pacified, and in 7 BC Germania was made into a Roman province (Germania or Germania Magna). Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (grandfather of the future…

Production of the Greek bronze helmet began with multiple sheets of hammered bronze; some Kegelhelm examples needing five pieces riveted together. This was reduced when two halves were hammered to make the shape of the helmet and then riveted in a vertical join. On examples made in halves, the join of the sheets occurred in the middle and so was reinforced with a ridge-crest on the crown. And then, eventually (probably in the seventh century) helmets were made from a single hammered sheet to produce the bowl and other surfaces of the helmet. With these advances came other features such as the lowering of the crown to fit the skull more-or-less closely and full-face (Corinthian) rather than open-face (Illyrian) helmets. To this rounded crown fittings such as crest holders were…

The Gallic helmet of the time is the Montefortino, but differentiating them from Roman varieties are their trilobe cheek pieces and iron construction. Helmet shape and decoration is noticeably less standardized than Roman models, with even the top knob often being adorned. Helmets of upper-class warriors would also have had detailed engravings. Short and curled horns may also appear at this time. The Gallic warrior of this time is often represented as fighting nude. According to the literary sources, this was the case for the Gaesatae. But this does not account for the panoply of the Boii and the Insubres, the best armoured of whom – chieftains, nobles, cavalrymen, and warlords – would likely have worn mail. This had its origins across the Alps, dating to around the late fourth…

Even before the province of Thrace was created in 46 BC, Thracians had been serving in Roman armies. Thereafter, their numbers only increased as both auxiliary cavalry alae and infantry cohortes. Most named units were created in the first century AD, such as the ala I Thracum or cohors I Thracum - we know of at least five alae and eleven cohortes from Thrace from surviving inscriptions and diplomas. Some units took on additional titles (such as ala I Augusta Thra- cum or ala I Thracum Victrix) to differentiate them from one another although these may on occasion refer to the same unit at different stages of its career. Some of these units remained in service for centuries all over the empire as is suggested by inscriptions and the Notitia Dignitatum.…

THE ARMOUR OF IMPERIAL ROME By Henry Russell Robinson Arms and Armour Press, 1975 ISBN: 978-0684139562 Robinson's magnum opus remains the ‘bible’ for Roman armour despite many advances in discovery and scholarship having been made since. The purpose of this book was to provide in one volume a comprehensive study of Roman armour and it more than achieved that, creating a lasting legacy on the study of Roman armour including helmets, and only recently have Robinson's helmet typlogies been superseded. ROMAN IMPERIAL ARMOUR: THE PRODUCTION OF EARLY IMPERIAL MILITARY ARMOUR By David Sim and J. Kaminski Oxbow Books, 2012 ISBN: 978-1842177037 Exploring the production of armour during the early imperial period in the first and second centuries AD, the authors examine the metals and how the raw product was made…