The power of the great Rome, who created the first empire in Europe, which existed for such a long time, overshadowed for historians the fate of many other peoples who lived in Italy "before Rome" and "simultaneously with Rome." Meanwhile, the culture of these peoples largely influenced Rome.
A fresco from Paestum. The armor and weapons of the Samnite warriors are very clearly visible. It is significant that a warrior with a round shield has two spears with belt loops, that is, this is a weapon for throwing. Naples Museum.
In one of the articles published here, it has already been noted that Rome is a "imitating state" that successfully borrowed and developed the achievements of other peoples. The scutum shield, the Hispanicus sword, the hamata ("Gaulish shirt") chain mail - these are just a small part of what they took from others. And there was also the "export of brains" and "workers' hands", violent, it is true. And also "borrowing" of statues, paintings, gold and jewelry.
Etruscan amphora. The Romans had a lot to learn from the Etruscans, at least in terms of erotic fun. Archaeological Museum of Naples.
Another amphora on the same topic. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
But while Rome had not yet gained strength, many other peoples lived next to it on the territory of Italy. For example, the Etruscan civilization developed there, which had a great influence on him, moreover, Rome itself was under their rule. The Romans borrowed from them the arch, gladiator fights and chariot races. However, later the inhabitants of Etruria received Roman citizenship and … disappeared among the Romans. Today we can judge them only on the basis of rich burials and … that's it!
Etruscan chariot from Monteleone. Around 530 BC Bronze and bone. Length 209 cm. Height 130.9 cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
However, in military terms - and in fact we are primarily interested in military history, the Etruscans did not represent anything special. The weapons found in the tombs are of the traditional Greek type and belong mainly to the Phalangite warriors. True, they had a characteristic shell in the form of a round chest plate, fixed on four belts. But more often they used classic linen and anatomical bronze shells, often covered with tin. Chain mail was also known to the Etruscans.
Negau helmet. St. Julia Museum, Brescia.
The most typical helmet was the Negau type helmet, named after a village in Yugoslavia, where a lot of such helmets were found. It is known that they had nobles who fought in chariots and infantry from the "common" people.
However, from the point of view of military history, another Italic people, very different from the Romans in both language and culture - the Samnites, is still more interesting. The territory in which they lived was called Samnius, the Samnites spoke the Oka dialect, and the political form of their organization was the Samnite Federation, which was a union of tribes.
Samnite warrior figurine III BC Museum of Roman Civilization. Della Civilta, Rome.
The Samnites now and then fought the Roman-Etruscan army of the first Roman kings, and with varying success. It is known that under King Tarquinius the Ancient it consisted of three parts: the phalanx, which consisted of the Etruscans, the Romans proper and the Latins. Titus Livy left us an interesting description of the Samnite warriors, who, according to him, looked like this: they had a helmet with a crest, and one greave on their left leg. The shield is not round, but somewhat unusual in shape - wide and flat at the top to protect the chest and shoulders, but tapering downward. He further writes that there were soldiers with golden shields, and there were silver ones. The "golden" ones wore multi-colored tunics, gilded scabbards and sashes, and the "silver" ones wore white linen tunics and equipment trimmed with silver!
Samnite warriors. Artist Richard Hook.
The English historian Peter Connolly declares in this regard that it is impossible to believe in this case the "History" of Livy, since he describes not the warriors, but the Roman gladiators of the "Samnites". At the same time, many images of the Samnites are known, which make it possible to reconstruct their appearance with sufficient accuracy. There is also a statuette "Samnite Warrior" from the Louvre. On his head he wears an Attic-style helmet, a breastplate with three discs and leggings, which goes well with the images of a Samnite warrior on a vase from Campania, which is in the British Museum.
Greek helmet from southern Italy, late 4th century. BC. Boston Museum of Fine Arts, USA.
All this allows us to reasonably enough to say that the Samnite armament complex was very different from the Roman one, so it was easy for them to distinguish each other in battle. Let's start with … the belt worn by the Italic warriors (not only the Samnites!), Representing a band of bronze 8-12 cm wide, fastened with two hooks. Moreover, there were several paired holes on it, which made it easy to fit it to the figure.
Samnite carapace from the tomb of Ksur es Sad. Bardo Museum, Tunisia.
Next comes the shell of a completely unusual shape - in the form of a triangle, made up of three disks. In total, archaeologists have found 15 such shells, which indicates their distribution. The carapace consisted of two plates: front and back, it was not connected to the belt in any way, but was attached to the body with the help of curved bronze plates. That is, such an armor set aside quite significant parts of the body open and here the main question arises - why? After all, the armor should protect the warrior so that he would not be distracted by parrying the enemy's blows on his unprotected places, but would try to kill him first. The traditional Greek muscular carapace could (and did!) Give complete invulnerability to the torso, and such carapaces have come down to us, but they are much smaller than the "three-disc" ones. And there is still no answer to this: where and why such a form, and in what way is it better than others?
The next type of carapace, known from frescoes and finds, is also quite original. These are square plates with rounded edges for the chest and back with anatomical engraving depicting the muscles of the chest, abdomen and back. But … these shells themselves are small, their length does not exceed 30 cm, so that the pattern of muscles with the actual muscles does not even closely match. That is, before us is nothing more than a symbolic copy of the complete anatomical carapace, which, of course, is very interesting. These plates were fixed on the warrior's body in the same way as the "three-disc shells" - that is, with the help of bronze plates about 12 cm wide, which had fasteners on rings and hooks. The Samnites and scaly shells were not used, although they became known to the same Romans, most likely, at the same time as chain mail.
The helmet is clearly of Samnite origin 350-200 BC. BC. Paul Getty Museum, California.
What else the Samnites decided to be different from all the others (how else to say otherwise?) Is the decoration of helmets. Actually, all of them are recognized by their characteristic pen holders. The helmet itself is quite ordinary - it is a Chalcedan helmet without a nosepiece and with hinged cheek pads. They adopted it from the Greeks, this is understandable, but they added to it two tubes to the left and right of the ridge or the place where it was from the Greeks. Often the helmet was also decorated with tin wings on the sides, and then the feather tubes were hidden behind them. That is, if the Greeks had only one crest on the helmet and that was all, then the Etruscans had two more feathers on exactly the same helmet. Sometimes there were five tubes, and they were located across the helmet. They also used helmets of the Montefortine type, but later.
Roman scale armor. Royal Ontario Museum. Canada.
Judging by the images on the frescoes, the Samnites had good cavalry and many horsemen. Peter Connolly even claims that they had the best cavalry among the Italic peoples. At the same time, on the frescoes of the horses we see bronze bibs and foreheads, that is, their horses were at least somehow protected. These details of horse equipment were found by archaeologists and they are exactly the same as in the drawings. Interestingly, the riders are armed in the same way as the infantrymen, that is, there is no difference between them.
Illyrian helmet. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
It is known that between Rome and Samnium there were as many as three wars in the period from 326 to 291 BC. e., and in one of the battles the Samnites not only won, but managed to capture a significant part of the Roman army and all the prisoners were forced to pass under a yoke - “a gate of three spears, connected by the letter P, which, according to the concepts of that time, was a terrible shame. But in the end, the Romans of the Samnites still won, preserving, however, as a reminder of their military prowess, the Samnites-gladiators. The equipment of the Samnite gladiators was a large traditional rectangular scutum shield, a helmet decorated with feathers, a short sword, and, possibly, a hammered grease (a tribute to history!) On the left leg.
