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The Attic helmet was a type of helmet that originated in
popular image
of a Roman officer, as found in art from the Renaissance onwards or in earlier Hollywood productions. However, no archaeological remains of this type of helmet have been found to date. The closest surviving Imperial Roman helmet to the type illustrated in relief sculpture dates to the 2nd century AD, and was found in
The Attic helmet was a type of helmet that originated in Classical Greece
Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years (the 5th and 4th centuries BC) in Ancient Greece,The "Classical Age" is "the modern designation of the period from about 500 B.C. to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C." ( Thomas R. Marti ...
and was widely used in Italy and the Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
world until well into the Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...
. Its name is a modern historiographic convention: "Terms such as Illyrian and Attic are used in archaeology for convenience to denote a particular type of helmet and do not imply its origin".
The Attic helmet was similar to the Chalcidian helmet
A Chalcidian helmet or Chalcidian type helmet was a helmet made of bronze and worn by ancient warriors of the Hellenic world, especially popular in Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BC. The helmet was also worn extensively in the Greek (s ...
but lacked a nose guard. Although in Greece itself its use was not as widespread as the Corinthian Corinthian or Corinthians may refer to:
*Several Pauline epistles, books of the New Testament of the Bible:
**First Epistle to the Corinthians
**Second Epistle to the Corinthians
**Third Epistle to the Corinthians (Orthodox)
*A demonym relating to ...
or Phrygian types, the Attic helmet became very popular in Italy, where most examples have been found. Many Italian peoples used variations of the attic helmet, but archaeologically it has been especially prominent in Samnite and Lucanian burials and their associated art (frescos etc.).
As an artistic motif, variations of the Attic helmet long outlasted other contemporary helmet types, being used to impart an archaic look to depictions of generals, emperors and Praetorians
The Praetorian Guard (Latin language, Latin: ''cohortēs praetōriae'') was a unit of the Imperial Roman army that served as personal Bodyguard, bodyguards and military intelligence, intelligence agents for the Roman emperors. During the Roman R ...
throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods. As such, a form of Attic helmet has become part of thpopular image
of a Roman officer, as found in art from the Renaissance onwards or in earlier Hollywood productions. However, no archaeological remains of this type of helmet have been found to date. The closest surviving Imperial Roman helmet to the type illustrated in relief sculpture dates to the 2nd century AD, and was found in
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
. It has been classified as a "pseudo-Attic" helmet by some scholars. It is of tinned bronze and is very elaborately decorated with an integral crest raised from the skull incorporating an eagle..
References
Bibliography
* {{helmets Ancient Greek helmets