Republican Roman Helmet Feathers

[oldbob]

I can't remember what type of feathers they used for their helmets. I'm sure it was some type of large water fowl. I believe Polybius described these feathers in Book #6, but I'm unable to locate the passage now. Please I need help!

[Duncan Head]

Poly doesn't say what breed of feathers: "Upon the helmet is worn as an ornament a circle (or crown) of feathers with three upright feathers, either red or black, of about a cubit in height". There's a picture on a bronze tablet from Entella in Sicily of a Roman Montefortino helmet with three feathers in tall bronze plume-holder tubes, which suggests that the cubit height might include the plume-holder - if it's the feather alone, it may be hard to identify an Italian species with eighteen-inch feathers.

[oldbob]

Mr. Head; thank you for your reply.

[David Kush]

I wonder if some now unknown species of bird was hunted to extinction supplying feathers to the rapidly expanding armies of the republic at the time.

[Ian61]

As Duncan suggests the plume holder may well have been included. 
Whist I am almost as cynical as David when it comes to man made extinctions logic suggests at least two other possibilities exist that are not mutually exclusive...
1. Feathers could have been a trade item from other lands and 2. Feathers can be dyed!

Ian

[Ian61]

PS - I do appreciate David was mostly jest at the bird extinction but it does raise a thought about extinctions, I wonder how many we will never know about because folks wen't too concerned.  The Syrian elephant (Elephas maximus asurus) is a rather larger animal becoming extinct at about 100 BC which is about the time of our mythical pluméd bird is the only one I can think of from that time period.  I am sure I read a Lindsey Davis novel set at the time of Vespasian where a plant becomes extinct but I suspect that was probably fictional.
Ian

[Duncan Head]

Silphium, and it isn't fictional: I don't think the identification is 100% certain, but the name is widely thought to refer to a plant that is now extinct - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium.

[Erpingham]

The Syrian elephant (Elephas maximus asurus) is a rather larger animal becoming extinct at about 100 BC which is about the time of our mythical pluméd bird is the only one I can think of from that time period.
Ian

At what date did the North African elephant become extinct?

[Citizen6]

Neither the Syrian or the North African elephants are technically extinct as there is no evidence really to suggest that they ever existed as separate species. The ecological ranges of the African elephant sp. (Loxodonta africanus and L. cyclotis) and the Indian elephant (Elephas maximus indicus) have contracted significantly since ancient times. There is not even any good reason to suspect that they were sub-species as there is not as much variation genetically between Elephas sp. as there is between Loxodonta sp. Even the elephants in Sri Lanka are not sufficiently genetically diverse from the mainland to warrant sub-speciation (even though they are taxonomically - the reason lies in the disjoint between old definitions of species and the outcomes of molecular studies). As such, Syrian elephants were probably just ordinary E m indicus.

The fate of the elephants of Syria becomes difficult to determine due to the massive importation of elephants and successive breeding programs put in place by the various Diadochi. There is good reason to suspect that truly local Syrian elephants may have been wiped out by the time of the rise of the Persian empire mostly due to the activities of ivory hunters. But certainly the date given by Ian would not be unreasonable as the last populations of the imported elephants would have been dying out  around 100BC (elephants live to about 70) which coincides nicely with the rise of the Parthians (which then prevents access to the Indus for further supplies). Hannibal definitely had at least one Elephas in his crossing of the Alps as shown on coins of the period.

Similarly the North African elephant is probably just L. cyclotis with an expanded habitiat range. Hunting in classical times as well as ecological contraction being responsible for their absence from North Africa now, though it is not really possible to say when the ecological isolation of the group occured. At best it "may" have been a sub-species of L cyclotis but this is far from certain. Taxonomically L afrcianus and L cyclotis are still (to the best of my knowledge) considered to be L africanus africanus and L africanus cyclotis. That is, two sub-species of the same species. Molecular studies show this to be incorrect. Though as far as I can tell there is a lot of support to separate the two africans their own species each - but the wheels of taxonomy move slowly. It is also complicated by the fact that there is an enormous amount of genetic variation inherent in the modern populations of L cyclotis (and relatively little in L africanus comparatively). They can interbreed too, though don't usually due to geographic and ecological considerations and the fact that cyclotis females tend to avoid africanus males where possible. Also there is a great variation in the size of L africanus depending on geographical ranges and habitat. So it is even possible (but to my mind less likely) that the Carthaginians were using a population of smaller L africanus and not the usually supposed L cyclotis.

Certainly there is reasonable evidence that there were elephants available to the Romans well into the late Republican or even (Claudius again) the early Imperial period. But I can only assume that the games and ivory trade would have made short work of an isolated population. And as elephants apparently don't sea-travel well, once there was no longer a direct means of land access to other populations, the Sahara and the Parthians would have prevented the Romans from accessing any more.

[Patrick Waterson]

Thanks for those observations, Ian.  Any idea of how the anatomy of elephants depicted in contemporary art would swing conclusions?

Tiglath-pileser I of Assyrian and Thutmose III of Egypt both carried out extensive elephant hunts in Syria, after which I find no reference to elephants in that geographic locality until Darius brings 15 to Gaugamela and Seleucus acquires 500 from India.

Returning to the matter of Roman helmet feathers, may I suggest that the bird most likely to provide them would have been the goose, which despite - or perhaps because of - its humble domestic associations was considered worthy of sacrificing to Juno (hence the Capitoline Geese in 390/389 BC).  Geese have quite large feathers, the wing feathers being particularly impressive, and there would have been a constant turnover of geese, sufficient to supply feathers for thousands of helmets each year.

[Citizen6]

On the topic of feathers and colours.....in the translations of Polybius I have it says purple / red or black. Is this an inclusive "or" or an exclusive "or" usage, or do we not know? That is to say, do we know if some wore purple and some wore black separately (either colour but not both) or did each soldier have, for example a combination of the two colours the combination not being important as long as they were purple or black. I guess it comes down to the subtleties of the conjunction usage in the Greek.

Also is there anything to suggest anywhere that the feathers were used to indicate maniples etc.

[Duncan Head]

I don't think we can say anything about the precise implication of "or". And no, no evidence that the feathers indicated anything other than Roman-ness.

[Citizen6]

Thanks for those observations, Ian.  Any idea of how the anatomy of elephants depicted in contemporary art would swing conclusions?

Not sure if this was meant to be directed at me but....in terms of art from the time I don't think it is possible to say. Both of the proposed taxonomies (E m asurus and L a pharoensis) are just theoretical species for which there is no biological evidence. They look in all regards exactly the same as the species from which they are derived. That is to say E m asurus look like E maximus and L a pharoensis look like L africanus which in turn (apart from the height) look like L cyclotis.

In art of the time it is pretty easy to pick the Loxodonta species from the Elephas species as these are almost always rendered accurately. I have only seen one image where the artistry was so bad it was not possible to get any idea. Where riders are depicted, they are often comparatively large compared to the elephant and so it is not possible to gauge whether the rider has been enlarged for emphasis or the elephant is in fact a small pachyderm. Taken at face value almost all non-Elephas depictions suggest a "small" African elephant (cyclotis). However, the same effect is seen sometimes with depiction of horses. Even though classicalhorses were smaller (12-14 hands) then than now (15-17 hands), there is often an obvious disproportion between the size of the horse and the size of the rider. There is though, a nice coin from Nova Carthago depicting Hamilcar (assumed to be) on an elephant and it looks fairly proportional , so assuming he was 5.5' (an suitable height for the time) the elephant looks to be about 7-8ft tall at the shoulder (suggesting cyclotis). L cylotis rarely exceed 8ft whereas L africanus are usually over 10ft and can be up to 14ft so there is a marked size difference.

The reality is that unless we can find a some bones in good condition of an elephant with a known association with one of these areas and are able to submit it to mitochondrial DNA analysis (assuming there's still suitable material), we will never really know.

[Patrick Waterson]

That makes eminent sense.  Thank you.