Collection: Greek Helmets

Phrygian helmets
The Phrygian helmet, also known as the Thracian helmet, was a type of helmet that originated in Classical Greece and was widely used in Thrace, Dacia, Magna Graecia and the Hellenistic world until well into the Roman Empire. The names given to this type of helmet are derived from its shape, in particular the high and forward inclined apex, in which it resembles the caps (usually of leather) habitually worn by Phrygian and Thracian peoples. Like other types of Greek helmet, the vast majority of Phrygian helmets were made of bronze. The Phrygian helmet was worn by Macedonian cavalry in King Philip's day but his son Alexander is said to have preferred the open-faced Boeotian helmet for his cavalry. The Phrygian helmet was in prominent use at the end of the Classical Era and into the Hellenistic period, replacing the earlier 'Corinthian' type from the 5th century BC.

Corinthian helmets
Out of combat, a Greek hoplite would wear the helmet tipped upward for comfort. This practice gave rise to a series of variant forms in Italy, where the slits were almost closed, since the helmet was no longer pulled over the face but worn cap-like. Although the classical Corinthian helmet fell out of use among the Greeks in favour of more open types, the Italo-Corinthian types remained in use until the 1st century AD, being used, among others, by the Roman army. The Corinthian helmet was depicted on more sculpture than any other helmet; it seems the Greeks romantically associated it with glory and the past. The Romans also revered it, from copies of Greek originals to sculpture of their own. Based on the sparse pictorial evidence of the republican Roman army, in Italy the Corinthian helmet evolved into a jockey-cap style helmet called the Italo-Corinthian, Etrusco-Corinthian or Apulo-Corinthian helmet.



Chalcidian helmets
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  parts of Italy in the same period. The helmet is so-called because it was first, and is most commonly, depicted on pottery once thought to derive from the Euboean city of Chalcis. In fact, it is not known whether the helmet originated in Chalcis; indeed, it is not even known whether the pottery in question was Chalcidian. By the time of Alexander the Great, the helmet was still worn by armoured soldiers, especially Hoplites, the spear-armed heavy infantrymen (other than those of the Spartans, who instead wore the much plainer pilos helmet). It is likely that some of the Macedonian soldiers who ruled the rest of Greece and went on to forge a substantial Hellenistic empire also wore the Chalcidian helmet. The helmet is thought to have developed in turn into the Attic helmet which is iconic of classical soldiers.



Attic helmets
The Attic helmet was a type of helmet that originated in Classical Greece and was widely used in Italy and the Hellenistic world until well into the Roman Empire. Its name is a modern historiographic convention. The Attic helmet was similar to the Chalcidian helmet but lacked a nose guard. Although in Greece itself its use was not as widespread as other 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.
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 throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods. 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.