Antiquities Exhibits

The ancient Olympic Games in Greece included contests of trumpet playing in 396 B.C.E. These contests were judged not by musicality but by volume of sound. The instrument used by the Greek trumpeters was the Salpinx, a reported copy of which is preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. This Salpinx measures 157 cm. and is made of thirteen cylindrical parts made of ivory with a bell made of bronze, as is the mouthpiece. But, signal musicians used as an integral part of a military organization appear first in the Roman Legion. These musicians, called aenatores, utilized a wide variety of trumpets, and signals were sounded on these instruments which the Romans inherited from the Etruscans. The Etruscans were superb metallurgists and smiths, and must have been skilled in the making of bronze or silver trumpets. A collection of forty-three signals were used in the Roman Army. Instruments in the Roman Legion included trumpets such as the Tuba which was conical shaped and about 117 cm. ...

When Ardashir I (r. 224-241 CE) founded the Sasanian Empire, he created a  standing army which was under his personal command and whose officers were separate from satraps, local princes and nobility. He restored the Achaemenid military organizations, retained the Parthian cavalry model, and employed new types of armor and siege warfare techniques.  Organizationally, the Shahanshah (the King of Kings) served as the head of the military and there were four military commanders under his authority. Initially, the offices of the Great King of Armenia, King of Meshan, King of Gilan, and King of Sakastan fulfilled these roles. After the reforms of Khosrow I, there were four spahbeds (Army Commanders), each for a cardinal direction. In the character of their warfare, the Persians of the Sasanian period differed greatly, though, from their forebears under the Achaemenid kings. The war chariot was no longer used, the  elephant corps was advanced to a very prominent and important p...

 The Byzantine army evolved from that of the late Roman Empire, but it became considerably more sophisticated in strategy, tactics and organization over time. The language of the army was still Latin, until the 6th century when Greek became the official language of the entire empire. Unlike the Roman legions, though, the Byzantines' strength was in its cavalry, especially the armored cataphracts, which evolved from the clibanarii of the late empire.  The Romans introduced armored cavalry after clashing with cataphracts at the battles of Magnesia in 190 BCE against the Seleucids, Trigranocerta in 69 BCE against the Armenians, and the disastrous Carrhae in 53 BCE against the Parthians. Parthian cataphracts became a constant threat from the 1st - 2nd centuries CE then their threat was replaced by the cataphracts of the Sassanian Persians in the 3rd century CE. Marc Antony and Cleopatra employed contarii (from the Greek kontarioi meaning lancers) in the 1st century BCE and, when T...

In his book, The Armour of Imperial Rome, published in 1975, British classicist H. R. Robinson identified 30 different types of cheek guards. However, Robinson's typology has been heavily criticized by other scholars as too rigid and closed to adapt to new discoveries. Thomas Fischer, author of "Army of the Roman Emperors, Archaeology and History," points to the systematic identification of every elaborate ornate cavalry helmet as parade armor that resulted in hardly any of the recovered helmets from the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE as regular cavalry helmets. He observes that on the basis of finds made at Ostrov and Tell Oum Hauran, ornamentation alone was not enough to assign a helmet to parade armor.   "...these assemblages contained two ornate helmets: one with a face-mask and one without a mask.  It seems logical that the latter was the piece for everyday use and combat." The oldest recovered Roman helmet dates to the 3rd century BCE.  It was recovered from Piz...

According to Arrian of Nicomedia, a Roman provincial governor and a close friend of Hadrian, face mask helmets were used in cavalry parades and sporting mock battles called “hippika gymnasia“.  Both men and horses wore elaborate suites of equipment on these occasions, often in the guise of Greeks and Amazons. Parades or tournaments played an important part in maintaining unit morale and fighting effectiveness. They took place on a parade ground situated outside a fort and involved the cavalry practising manoeuvring and the handling of weapons such as javelins and spears (Fields, Nic; Hook, Adam. Roman auxiliary cavalryman: AD 14-193). Calvary helmets were made from a variety of metals and alloys, often from gold-coloured alloys or iron covered with tin. They were decorated with embossed reliefs and engravings depicting the war god Mars and other divine and semi-divine figures associated with the military. To see a fascinating selection of these masks and read more about them check ...

 A newly conserved bust of an Antonine period military commander (140-160 CE) at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California is now on display.  The cloak, known as a paludamentum, worn over the left shoulder signifies that this man was a military commander. His short beard and tousled hair were fashionable during the reign of the emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161 CE), providing an approximate date for the sculpture. - Getty Villa Bust of a Roman military commander (140-160 CE) at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, California