|
11.2.3 Roman Swords
|
|
An
Extremely Short Overview |
 |
The "Pax
Romana" (the "Roman peace"), lasted from about 27 BC to
180 AD. It was a time of relative peace and quiet for about 200 years in most
of the area shown in color in the map below. The "Pax Americana" by
comparison, has lasted about 65 years by now (with the USA actually being
engaged in some war somewhere most of this time). The beginning of this
blissful period is connected to the rise of power of Augustus the founder
of the Roman Empire and its first Emperor. He ruled from 27 BC until his death
in 14 AD.
If you compare Augustus' empire to that around 300 BC you can see that the Romans did rely on
the might of the sword to an astonishing degree. |
|
|
 |
The Roman Empire (colors) around 31 AD
Large map |
Source: Wikipedia |
|
 |
The empire was already rather large
when Augustus started his term. During his reign it grew quite a bit and that
didn't happen by gently persuading the various neighbors to come forward and
sign up. Just consider the bit of unpleasantness that happened in Bethlehem
around 0 AD and again in Jerusalem some 30 years later. Roman legionaries
essentially conquered all the colored territories outside Italy and radiated
enough power from the borders to keep the pink ones in line. The legions won
the various battles for all kinds of reasons - but not because of superior
swords. |
|
 |
I'm not saying that
their swords were inferior. All I'm saying is that they were not very
remarkable from a metallurgical point of view until about 200 AD - 300 AD when
sophisticated pattern welded swords appeared. The team-work fighting style of
legionaries, with fancy group maneuvers and so on, was probably far more
remarkable and deadly to the undisciplined wielders of long and well-made
swords. Here is a picture from the battle in Sagnlandet Lejre (probably taken
with an extremely early Leica). |
|
|
|
|
 |
The legionaries are holding a short
sword, the gladius, one of their standard-issue
weapons used for centuries without much change in the general shape. |
 |
While most everybody in a legion was
a pedestrian, the Romans also had a cavalry
("equites Romani"). In Augustus' time and later this was mostly a
Roman Auxilia (literally
"helpers") cavalry, recruited from non-citizens in occupied
territories (called provinces) that had strong native cavalry traditions.
Here is a Danish auxilia training on casual Friday without the prescribed
uniform: |
|
|
 |
Roman mounted auxilia, practising with his
spatha |
|
|
 |
As outlined before, a short sword is
not optimal for fighting on horseback. Here you need the real thing: a long
slashing kind of sword called a spatha by the Roman
and everybody else. The picture illustrates what is quite clear anyway: If you
fight from horseback you simply need a longer sword than a foot soldier. |
 |
As far as Roman swords are concerned
I have given you a
picture
already. Before I go into details concerning gladius and spatha, it can't
hurt, however, to have a quick look at the pugio
too, the standard-issue Roman dagger. Here
are a few examples: |
|
|
|
|
 |
Those pugios are
from the late Roman period, 300 AD say. I appears that at least the two in the
front have a pattern welded mid-rib with a
fishbone pattern.
These late pugios look pretty much like earlier ones. Romans were not great
scientists, maybe, but they definitely were good engineers and heeded the first
law of engineering 1). Pugios also
look a lot like the Celtic
show-off daggers so popular in the graves of nobles after swords
disappeared as grave goods. |
|
|
|
|
Gladius
and Spatha |
 |
Polybius and
others Roman writers were making fun of the poor quality of Celtic swords,
implying that the Roman ones were much better. A metallographic analysis should
show if that really was the case, and what exactly the Roman metal workers
could do better than the Celts. There is only one problem: |
|
|
We do not have many gladii and spatha
from the Roman military!
|
|
 |
However, we do have many Roman-made
swords that were used by the Barbarians in the North and sacrificed by other
Barbarians who defeated them. Fortunately, these guys pitched most of what they
took from the dead enemy into a holy lake or bog, where some of the stuff was
preserved exceedingly well until today. Typically, the swords are from the
third and fourth century AD and most of them were pattern welded. |
|
 |
I will go into those and other
pattern welded swords in great detail in the next
sub-chapter. Here I only look at the
Roman gladius and spatha as it was used by Romans typically before 200 AD. |
 |
As
pointed out before, a Roman
legionary did not have an emotional attachment to his gear, in contrast to his
barbarian or Teutonic opponent in the North-East. And even if he had, he
couldn't take his trusty gladius into the grave with him. He had to give it
back (in good condition) when he left the army - or else. We know from
inscriptions that Roman swords had more than one (temporary) owner. I do
believe (or rather hope) that modern armies tend to collect the M16s or
Kalashnikovs too when some soldier is discharged; in millennia to come very few
will be found in graves. |
|
 |
To give a number: In all of Great
Britain, according to the BBC, altogether 8 spathae have been found so far. I
do not have numbers for other countries and for the gladius but there just
aren't many - while we have far more than 1000 Celtic long swords of the La
Tène type. That means not only that there isn't much to investigate
metallographically but also that museum curators will be even more reluctant
than in normal cases to have these artifacts analyzed.
It also means that we cannot have a good idea for what was typical. Even worse,
there are indications that some of the gladii or spathae found were especially
precious ones and therefore atypical. They might have been sacrificed by the
winner and that's why we found them. |
 |
Before I turn to the what little data
there is, I will look a bit more closely at the objects of interest: the
gladius and the spatha. First, let's be aware that Roman legions were running
around for about 500 years in much of Europe. We must assume that the gladius
of a guy in Spain might have differed somewhat from the one issued in Turkey at
the same time, and that a 200 BC spatha was different from a 200 AD one. They
also differ "somehow" from non-Roman swords but it is not always easy
to put that into into words. Nevertheless, most of the time you know a gladius
/ spatha when you see one. |
|
 |
There are plenty of books and articles about the
details. A few salient points concerning the gladius (taken from the article of Janet
Lang 2) are:
- The name "gladius" in Latin
simply means sword. It is believed to be a Celtic loanword derived from ancient
Celtic "kladi(b)os" or "kladimos"=sword. A gladiator is a
swordsman and a gladiolus is a plant with sword-like leaves.
- History: During the conquest of Spain
in the 3rd century BC the Romans supposedly encountered the Gladius
Hispaniensis or "Spanish Sword", took over the design and kept it for
600 years or so.
- Length: Somewhere
between 590 mm and 367 mm. Most, however, come with lengths between 380 mm and
430 mm and there is a good reason for this "shortness": it is the
practical length for easy drawing if you only have one hand for doing this! As
a right-hander you then draw your sword with only the right hand from a scabbard on the right side of the body. You need to do this because
your left hand holds your big shield. A long sword typically hangs on your left
side and you must hold the scabbard with your left hand while you draw it out with your right
hand.
- Shape: Two basic shapes are
distinguished. The so-called Mainz type, in use before the middle of the first
century AD, and the Pompeii type after that. The Mainz type had a short,
slightly waisted blade about 500 mm long and and a long point, the Pompeii type
had parallel edges and the typical triangular tip. It was relatively short
(4550 cm) but "grew" in length as time progressed until it
became a spatha.
- There is no clear distinction between a gladius and a spatha. Swords 770 mm
long have been described as gladius although with this length it should be
rightfully a spatha.
|
|
 |
Here are a few gladii of the two basic types:
|
|
|
 |
Mainz type Gladii |
Source: From the "Roma Victrix"
Internet site. The top on is in the Zagreb museum (Republic of Croatia) the
other two are from private collections |
|
|
|
 |
Pompeii type Gladii |
Source: Left: Guttmann collection; from the
site of Bill Blake. Right: Photographed in the Nijmegem museum, Holland
|
|
 |
Now a few words to the Roman
spatha. The "Roman" is
important because the term "spatha" is used by many as the general
term for any straight double-edged sword. There is no clear distinction from a
gladius. As a practical matter one can take the length: A Roman sword longer
than about 75 cm we call a spatha. |
|
 |
Spatha in Latin means sword, just as gladius. It
probably goes back to the ancient Greek "spathi", a term for a wooden
blade or paddle. The spade you use for digging (German; Spaten) is
language-wise a close relative of the sword. Espada means sword in modern
Portuguese and Spanish; the French,
as always,
mutilated it to épée.
The term "spatha" for sword was introduced by Tacitus (ca. 56 AD
after 117 AD). He used it to distinguish the long swords of the
(unidentified; possibly Celtic or Germanic) mercenaries (called
"auxilia" or auxiliaries) from the gladii of the legionaries during
the chastising of the rebellious British king Caractacus.
Here are some spathae: |
|
|
|
Roman spathae |
Source: Top: Herford museum, 200 AD - 300
AD. Middle: Wikipedia. Bottom, Shrewsbury museum. |
|
 |
The spatha probably came to the
Romans via their Celtic mounted "auxilia", the hired Celtic cavalry,
in the early imperial period. Eventually, sort of in the second half of the 2nd
century AD, the spatha started to crowd out the gladius. That might be due to
the increasing importance of the cavalry and a general change of military
tactics. In a parallel development the sword was carried increasingly on the
left side and pattern welded swords appear.
|
|
|
|
|
The
Metallurgy of Roman Swords |
 |
What do we know about the metallurgy
of Roman swords (before, let's say, 200 AD)? Not all that much. Janet Lang's
study 2) from 1988 is still
the standard; a newer study on Roman armor 3) tends to confirm her findings. There are a few
studies of isolated objects before 1988; the result are covered in Janet Lang's
paper. |
|
 |
Janet investigated five Roman swords
from the British museum and one from Chichester; below are pictures for 4 of
them. They are:
- The sword of Tiberius. First half of the first century AD.
- The Fulham sword. First half of the first century AD
- Sword found in the Thames. First to second century AD
- Sword found near the Mansion House, London. Late first century AD
- Sword from Hod Hill. Mid to late first century AD
- Sword from Chichester. First half of the first century AD
|
|
|
 |
Some of the swords investigated |
Source: British Museum; Internet
|
|
 |
A schematic summary
of the findings almost tells it all: |
|
|
 |
Schematic structure of the Roman swords
investigated.
Numbers refer to Vickers hardness |
Source: British Museum; Internet
|
|
 |
What we have, in short, is:
- Five different structures for six swords. From rather bad to perfect.
- Compositional
piling is definitely used.
- Hardening by quenching is definitely used.
|
|
 |
Going a bit into detail we learn:
- The Fulham and Chichester sword might have been made without piling from
one solid piece of steel. It is, however, just as likely that traces of piling
were obliterated by forging.
- The three swords on the right were definitely made by essentially piling
wrought iron.
- The Tiberius sword was made by piling hard steel to the outside of softer
steel.
- The swords on the left were quenched and possibly tempered. Tempering could
have been done intentionally or by a quench short enough to leave the inside
still hot, heating up and thus tempering the outside somewhat after withdrawal
from the quenching medium.
- The smith making the Tiberius blade made the edge by filing / grinding,
removing the outside layer of hard steel in the edge region. That doesn't make
much sense.
- The somewhat earlier swords (before about 50 AD) are better than the later
ones.
|
|
Janet Lang goes into some length to
discuss these results. Six swords do not allow to extrapolate on other swords,
however, so we cannot learn anything about trends and so on.
One sword however, is already enough for one major
conclusion: |
|
|
Around 50 AD, at least one smith in the
Roman empire knew everything needed
to make complex composite swords
|
|
|
 |
Here he is. An authentic Roman smith with his
helpers, as shown in an amazing picture from a house in Pompeii and thus dating to - roughly - 50 AD. |
|
|
 |
Roman smith |
Source: Photographed in the Archeological
Museum Naples, 2018 |
|
|
 |
This is a picture from Pompeii, showing a smith
at work. Pompeii went down the drain (so to speak) at 79 AD, so the time is
about right. The picture (besides being a masterpiece of composition etc.)
shows the main ingredients needed to make complex composite sword: knowledgable
assistants (nowadays known as
grad students).
I'm not sure why they need to be naked. |
 |
We also know from looking at the
production of Roman iron that this was
a highly organized activity. The quality was not much better that that of the
non-Romans, but the quantity increased substantially, and everything was
standardized. Look at those iron bars found in the
Rhone
ship wrecks to get an idea. We might assume that the military industrial
complex that made all the weaponry and so on, was just as organized. It is
quite possible that standard equipment including swords was not made at a top
quality level but only up to meeting specifications (including costs, maybe).
However, without a sufficient number of specimens, this is just speculation.
|
 |
All things considered, the Romans did
quite well with their swords for several centuries. The Barbarians overthrowing
the Roman empire eventually did just as well or better. Their swords were
straight and double edged and thus related to the spatha. And they were
pattern-welded and at least earlier in the first half of the second millennium
acquired in one way or another from Roman sources. This leads us almost
straight to our next topic, pattern welding.
Before I go into this, however, we need to give a quick glance to more
"Roman swords: |
|
|
|
|
Swords of the
Byzantine Empire |
 |
In the West we always learn that the
Roman Empire
collapsed on at 476 AD. This is not quite correct, however: it was only the
Western part of the Roman empire that came down for good. The Eastern part
survived for almost 1000 years, until 1453 and became known as
Byzantine Empire. It not only survived,
it was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe
during most of its time. |
|
 |
Constantine I (324337), who
reorganized the full empire, made Constantinople (=Byzanz=Istanbul) the new
capital of the empire and legalized
Christianity. Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror finally took the city (and the
empire), after a 53-day siege that had begun on 6 April 1453. Constantinople's
"invincible" walls were breached by the early (first?) use of
cannons. |
 |
So what did the Byzantine empire give
us in terms of iron and steel technology? |
|
 |
Nothing, it appears. At least I could not find
anything written or shown in museums. I did not search very hard, though, but I
doubt there is much to discover. I have found nothing at all in the museums in
Istanbul. The Byzantines probably just carried on what they had and did not add
anything worth to note.
That goes with their achievements in almost all other "disciplines"
you care to mention: Philosophy, literature, music, art, ship building, general
technology, whatever - except, perhaps, architecture. The built the
Hagia Sophia, after all, around 535, and this
building is still a site to behold. They also were fanatic about mosaics but
that gets rather boring long before thousand years have passed. |
|
|
|
© H. Föll (Iron, Steel and Swords script)