This article explores the symbolic meaning of the Apulo-Corinthian helmet.
If you’re looking for a general overview of its origins, characteristics, and military use, you can read it here:
👉 Apulo-Corinthian helmet: origin, characteristics and use in ancient warfare
Apulo-Corinthian Helmet. When Symbol Matters More Than Function
The helmet currently called Apulo-Corinthian owes its name to its derivation from the Corinthian helmet, reproducing its appearance but not its functionality.
It was, in fact, intended to be worn on the head without covering the face.
Furthermore, many of the known helmets were found in or around the area of southern Italy historically occupied by the Apulian population.
The historical region Apulia
It is therefore a typically Italic helmet, not used outside the peninsula and, for example, not used in Greece, as far as we know.
The known finds are almost entirely confined to a rather narrow chronological and geographical period, namely Magna Graecia between the 6th and 4th centuries BC.
Distribution of the finds of Apulo-Corinthian helmets (Paddock 1993).
Apulo-Corinthian helmet in the Etruscan world
Its iconography, however, suggests a much broader diffusion. It is, in fact, widely used in Etruscan funerary sculpture from the 3rd to 2nd centuries BC, often adorned with a central horsehair crest and lateral feathers, sometimes with a transverse horsehair crest, and also appears with cheekpieces.
Etruscan depictions generally depict themes from Greek myth, which had been adopted in Etruria centuries earlier: in fact, Greek myth was adopted in Etruria and adopted as its own even before the introduction of writing, that is, at least around the 8th century (Belelli 2010).
Apulian Corinthian helmet preserved at the Archaeological Museum of Milan
The characters and heroes of the myth are therefore represented as high-ranking Etruscan warriors.
On the other hand, the Apulian-Corinthian helmet, probably created with the aim of materializing the iconography of the warrior deities (Mars and Minerva) and of the heroes, always represented with the Corinthian helmet raised on the head to uncover the face, was by definition intended to identify the highest military positions and warriors of undoubted prestige: the finds often come from the tombs of knights (Diffendale 2007), just as in Etruscan bas-reliefs they are worn by heroes or knights.
Apulo-Corinthian helmet during the Roman period
The Apulo-Corinthian helmet then appears in Roman iconography around the end of the 2nd century BC, on the Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus.
Then again, probably in the 1st century AD, in the fresco of Hector’s farewell to Andromache in the Domus Aurea, and on a Flavian-era relief now in the Villa Albani, also in Rome.
In this case, the helmet is worn by a soldier with a cingulum, balteus, and lorica segmentata, identified by some scholars as a praetorian.
The Apulo-Corinthian helmet, or the original Corinthian helmet raised on the head to reveal the face, is always associated, at least in Italic iconography, and very often also in Greek and Hellenistic iconography, with deities or high-ranking military officials.
From left to right: Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus, late 2nd century BC, from Rome, now in the Louvre Museum, Paris; Room of Hector and Andromache, Domus Aurea, Rome, 1st century AD; relief from Villa Albani, Rome, second half of the 1st century AD.
From the Augustan period onwards, various reinterpretations began which, always based on the association between the Corinthian helmet resting on the head and the hero-deity, assembled a shape that more or less evidently recalled the Apulian Corinthian helmet with various decorations and functional developments (cheek guards, neck guard, masks, etc.), such as the Autun helmet.
Roman helmet, iron and gilded bronze, 1st century B.C. – 1st century A.D. Rolin Museum, Autun, France.
The reinterpretations continued with the helmets called pseudo-Corinthian due to their aesthetic reference to the original helmet, probably uninterrupted for several centuries, until reaching the end of the ancient age.
There are numerous numismatic representations of Roman emperors wearing pseudo-Corinthian helmets.
The success of these reinterpretations continued until the Renaissance. And this is certainly not surprising, given that the Corinthian helmet is still considered a masterpiece of design and aesthetics.
From left to right: Pseudo-Corinthian helmet from Hedderneim, 2nd-3rd century AD, Frankfurt Museum, Germany; Ivory panel from the Throne of Maximian in Ravenna, 6th century; Silver plate, Byzantine art, 7th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.
The Apulo-Corinthian helmet. The helmet of heroes.
The Apulo-Corinthian helmet is one of the most distinctly Italic components of ancient panoplies. Fortunately, it has been known to us, thanks to the funerary use of the Italic peoples of southern Italy, since its appearance, likely in the 6th century BC, where it was very often included in the grave goods of knights or other warriors of the local elite.
Strongly associated with Italic heroic warrior iconography, it enjoyed enduring popularity as the helmet representing the highest military ranks in Italic, Etruscan, and Roman times.
From the 4th century BC onward, changing funerary uses allow us to follow its history almost exclusively through iconography, primarily Etruscan (not surprisingly, it is sometimes also called Etrusco-Corinthian) and Roman, at least until the 1st century AD.
From the Augustan period onward, variations developed that significantly transformed its appearance and functionality, while still maintaining the formal association with the wearer’s heroic warrior status.
This type of helmet almost consistently denotes its wearer as a warrior of undisputed valor, whether a hero or god in myth, or a leader in earthly life.
Borgognotta italiana del XVI secolo in acciaio dorato, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York,USA.
Bibliography
Bellelli, V. (2010), L’impatto del mito greco nell’Etruria orientalizzante: la documentazione ceramica, Bollettino di Archeologia on line I 2010/ Volume speciale C / C4 / 4 www.archeologia.beniculturali.it https://bollettinodiarcheologiaonline.beniculturali.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/4_BELLELLI.pdf
Cascarino, G. (2018), Gli elmi dei romani. Dalle origini alla fine dell’Impero d’Occidente, Il Cerchio.
Diffendale, D. (2007), Italica, https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~dpd/italica/apcor/apcor.html
Paddock, J.M.; (1993), The bronze Italian helmet : the development of the Cassis from the last quarter of the sixth century B.C. to the third quarter of the first century A.D. Doctoral thesis , University of London. https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1348999/
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