When divers plunged into the waters off Sicily’s Egadi Islands last summer, they didn’t just find rare artifacts from antiquity. They found the wreckage of an empire’s turning point.

Resting on the seafloor was a remarkably preserved bronze helmet, complete with cheek guards still intact. The helmet is in the Montefortino style and belonged to a Roman soldier who likely fought in the final battle of the First Punic War in 241 B.C.

“The ‘Montefortino’ helmet is one of the most beautiful and complete ever recovered,” said Francesco Paolo Scarpinato, Sicily’s regional councillor for cultural heritage, in a statement issued by the Sicilian Region.

A Helmet From the Battle That Changed History

The First Punic War was, in many ways, a clash between two very different visions of the Mediterranean. On one side you had Carthage, a mercantile powerhouse whose strength lay in its fleets, its trading networks, and its ability to hire armies of mercenaries from across the known world. On the other hand, Rome — a scrappy land power with little seafaring tradition, whose citizen-soldiers were accustomed to marching across Italy but not to boarding ships. Then these two forces collided in 264 BCE over control of Sicily. And this conflict metastasized into a brutal, decades-long struggle that would reshape the balance of power in the ancient world.

For much of the war, Rome was on the back foot at sea. Carthage had centuries of nautical experience; Rome had none. But Rome was adaptable. They built fleets modeled on captured Carthaginian ships and invented the corvus, a kind of boarding bridge that turned naval duels into floating infantry battles — essentially translating the Roman way of war onto the water. Over twenty years, fortunes swung back and forth, with Sicily becoming a graveyard for armies and navies alike.

The climax came at the Battle of the Egadi Islands on March 10, 241 BCE, just off Sicily’s western coast. Rome had rebuilt its navy one last time — funded not by the state but by wealthy private citizens who gambled on victory. Carthage, exhausted and stretched thin, fielded a larger fleet burdened with supplies for its troops. The Roman ships, stripped for speed and newly trained, rammed through the Carthaginian line in a ferocious engagement. By the end of the day, much of the Carthaginian fleet was sunk or captured, and Rome controlled the sea.

A Turning Point in Roman History

In the aftermath of the Battle of the Egadi Islands, also called the Battle of the Aegates, Carthage folded, ending a 23-year war and ceding Sicily to Rome, alongside massive reparations. Rome had, for the first time, claimed a province beyond the Italian peninsula. It’s not too much to say that the Roman Empire was born in those waters, amid shattered hulls and drowning sailors. Carthage, humiliated but not destroyed, would bide its time. Another Punic War was inevitable.

Still, the victory was decisive and set Rome on its path to empire. But it came at a staggering cost: hundreds of ships sunk and thousands dead.

The newly recovered helmet is a direct witness to that carnage. Divers from the Society for the Documentation of Submerged Sites found it buried alongside about 30 other relics — swords, spears, and javelins — all thought to be from the same clash. Using CT scans, researchers confirmed the artifacts’ affiliation despite heavy encrustation.

A Glimpse of the Soldiers Who Wore It

The Montefortino style was first developed by Celtic warriors and later adopted by the Romans. Its design included a knob for attaching a plume, a projecting brim shaped like a modern baseball cap, and hinged cheek plates. Archaeologist Jeffrey Royal, who has studied similar finds, explained to Live Science: “This was the most common type of helmet at that time. The great thing about this one is it seems the cheek pieces were found with it; most of ours were scattered.”

The Mediterranean continues to yield reminders of the First Punic War. Last year, a Roman naval battering ram — or rostrum — was recovered, inscribed with the name of Gaius Sulpicius Gallus, a Roman magistrate who helped oversee the war effort.