Montefortino Helmet

Origins

In the fifth and fourth centuries BC Celtic peoples settled in northern Italy, and they brought with them a simple, practical style of bronze helmet. The type takes its name from a cemetery at Montefortino d'Arcevia, in the Marche region, where helmets of this kind were found in the graves of Senone Gauls in the nineteenth century. The Etruscans, Samnites and Romans all adopted the design. By the time of the wars against Pyrrhus and Carthage in the third century BC it was the standard helmet of the Roman legionary, replacing older Greek and Italian styles such as the Attic and Corinthian types. Its use by both Celts and Romans means that finds of the helmet are spread from Spain to the Balkans.

Design & Construction

The Montefortino helmet is a tall, rounded bowl, often compared to a jockey's cap, with a small flared peak at the back to guard the neck. A knob on the crown held a crest, and a hole or loop at the back held a strap. Two cheek pieces, usually cut in a scalloped shape with three rounded lobes, were hinged to the sides and tied under the chin. Early helmets were carefully raised from a single sheet of bronze and decorated with engraved or embossed bands and cabled edges. As Rome's armies grew, helmets were made in huge numbers, and later examples are plainer, thinner and less carefully finished. Some appear to have been spun on a lathe rather than hammered. Most weighed between about 1 and 2 kilograms (2 to 4 pounds). The Greek historian Polybius, writing in the second century BC, said that Roman heavy infantry decorated their helmets with a crest of three upright purple or black feathers about a foot and a half tall, which made the men look taller and more frightening. A padded lining was worn underneath.

Combat Use

The helmet protected the top and sides of the head while leaving the face, ears and eyes open, so the soldier could see, hear orders and fight with the Roman Gladius and Roman Scutum in the open-order style of the manipular legion. Hastati, principes and triarii all wore it, with the richer men adding a mail shirt and the poorer a small square breastplate. It was worn through the First and Second Punic Wars, at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC and at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC, where the legions of Scipio defeated Hannibal. Carthaginian, Celtic and Italian soldiers on the other side often wore very similar helmets, and after his early victories Hannibal is said to have equipped some of his African infantry with captured Roman gear. In the first century BC a later form called the Buggenum type was worn by the armies of Caesar and his rivals.

Legacy

The Montefortino helmet stayed in use into the early first century AD, a working life of about four hundred years. It was gradually replaced by the simpler Coolus helmet and then by the Imperial Gallic and Imperial Italic types, with their broad neck guards and brow ridges. These later helmets kept the same basic plan of an open face, hinged cheek pieces and a neck guard. Many Montefortino helmets survive in museums, some found in rivers and graves and others raised from the sea off Sicily at the site of the naval Battle of the Aegates Islands of 241 BC, which ended the First Punic War.