Roman Marble Helmet of The Ares Borghese Statue

The helmet with decorative reliefs has constituted an important part of the marble statue designated as the Ares Borghese type. One of the most famous in the history of Classical sculpture, the Ares Borghese statue in the Louvre was purchased by Napoleon with the Borghese collection in Rome in 1807. It represents a standing youth, nude except for a helmet (according to the reconstruction of the prototype’s composition, he held a spear and a shield in his left arm). The youth, impressive of well-articulated musculature of his body, stands with his free leg advanced diagonally and the head inclined to the side, glance to the ground. With such a pose, the reliefs on the helmet are clearly presented.

The decoration of the present helmet, copying faithfully the Ares Borghese helmet, even surpasses it in a better preservation. Itself, the helmet was classified as belonging to the pseudo-Attic type, which has been in the use since the early Hellenistic period. The representation does not have the cheek-guards; the visor terminating in volutes has a peaked frontlet. The linear pattern is combined with figural and ornamental motives: there is a heraldic composition of two dogs on either side of a central palmette with scrolling tendrils; the half palmettes adorn the peak and are placed above the volutes. The design is based on a strict and precise symmetry. As for the dogs with long snouts, short ears, long tails, and sleek bodies, they were identified as of Lakonian, or Spartan, breed. Their presence on the helmet of Ares was also explained in regard of the fragment by Pausanias, in which the writer reports on the sacrifice at Sparta of puppies dedicated to Ares (Description of Greece 3, 14, 9).

The figural decoration on each side of the cranium is identical including the representations of winged griffins. A Griffin is a mythological creature with a lion’s body, the beak of an eagle as well as its wings. They were famous for guarding a treasure comprising of large amounts of gold in the mountains of Scythia. The Griffins were also famed to conflict with the one eyed Arimaspoi who sought to steal the mountains of gold the Griffins guarded. The griffin represents strength, courage and leadership and are featured on several military helmets.

The anatomical details of the beaks, paws, feathers of these fantastic beasts were skillfully rendered in low relief. The iconographical motive became popular in the middle of the 5^th century B.C., with the appearance of griffins on the helmet of Athena Parthenos by Phidias. A contemporary depiction of a standard Attic helmet decorated with griffins is found on the red-figure vase of ca. 440 B.C. attributed to the Lykaon Painter (the Metropolitan Museum of Art). The rear cranium of the marble helmet supplied with a neck protector was decorated with half palmettes on each side. Presumably, a flattened zone on the top and a drilled hole were prepared for the affixing the crest made separately (and, probably, from a different material); another hole in the lower rim of the neck protector would have been drilled for the same reason. In some variants, the support of the crest is shaped as a figure of a crouching sphinx.

Surface weathered, encrusted, and scratched; the rim is chipped; central part of the lower peaked frontlet missing; the relief battered in a few places; two holes for the crest attachment on top of the cranium and on the neck protector.

Ex- McAlpine Ancient Art, London; Ex- James and Marilynn Alsdorf collection, acquired in 1985.