The tuba was a long, straight bronze trumpet used by the Roman military for signalling, distinct from the curved cornu, and together these instruments relayed orders across the noise and chaos of a Roman battlefield.
Unlike the cornu’s coiled G-shape, the tuba’s long straight form produced a genuinely different tone, and Roman sources describe both instruments working together, sounded by trumpeters known as tubicines, to issue commands too complex for voice alone to carry reliably.
This reproduction is hand-made in metal, part of our Roman heritage range.






