''Gladius'' () is a

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

word properly referring to the type of

sword A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter ...

that was used by

ancient Roman In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

foot soldiers starting from the 3rd century BC and until the 3rd century AD. Linguistically, within Latin, the word also came to mean "sword", regardless of the type used. Early ancient Roman swords were similar to those of the Greeks, called '' xiphe'' (, : ''xiphos''). From the 3rd century BC, however, the Romans adopted a weapon based on the sword of the Celtiberians of

Hispania Hispania was the Ancient Rome, Roman name for the Iberian Peninsula. Under the Roman Republic, Hispania was divided into two Roman province, provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior. During the Principate, Hispania Ulterior was divide ...

in service to

Carthage Carthage was an ancient city in Northern Africa, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classic ...

during the

Punic Wars The Punic Wars were a series of wars fought between the Roman Republic and the Ancient Carthage, Carthaginian Empire during the period 264 to 146BC. Three such wars took place, involving a total of forty-three years of warfare on both land and ...

, known in Latin as the ''gladius hispaniensis'', meaning "

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

-type sword". The Romans improved the weapon and modified it depending on how their battle units waged war, and created over time new types of "''gladii''" such as the ''Mainz gladius'' and the ''Pompeii gladius''. Finally, in the third century AD the heavy Roman infantry replaced the ''gladius'' with the '' spatha'' (already common among Roman cavalrymen), relegating the ''gladius'' as a weapon for light Roman infantry. A fully equipped Roman

legionary The Roman legionary (in Latin ''legionarius''; : ''legionarii'') was a citizen soldier of the Roman army. These soldiers would conquer and defend the territories of ancient Rome during the Republic and Principate eras, alongside auxiliary and c ...

after the consulships of

Gaius Marius Gaius Marius (; – 13 January 86 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. Victor of the Cimbrian War, Cimbric and Jugurthine War, Jugurthine wars, he held the office of Roman consul, consul an unprecedented seven times. Rising from a fami ...

was armed with a sword (''gladius''), a shield ('' scutum''), one or two javelins ('' pila''), often a dagger ('' pugio''), and perhaps, in the later empire period, darts ('' plumbatae''). Conventionally, soldiers threw ''pila'' to disable the enemy's shields and disrupt enemy formations before engaging in close combat, for which they drew the . A soldier generally led with the shield and thrust with the sword.

Etymology

''Gladius'' is a

masculine noun. The

nominative In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants of E ...

plural of it is . However, in Latin refers to any sword, not only the sword described here. The word appears in literature as early as the plays of

Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus ( ; 254 – 184 BC) was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by Livius Andro ...

(''Casina'', ''Rudens''). ''Gladius'' is generally believed to be a

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foot ...

loan in Latin (perhaps via an Etruscan intermediary), derived from ancient Celtic or "sword" (whence modern Welsh "sword", modern Breton , Old Irish /Modern Irish tself perhaps a loan from Welsh the root of the word may survive in the Old Irish verb ''claidid'' "digs, excavates" and anciently attested in the Gallo-Brittonic place name element ''cladia''/''clado'' "ditch, trench, valley hollow"). Modern English words derived from include

gladiator A gladiator ( , ) was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their ...

("swordsman") and '' gladiolus'' ("little sword", from the

diminutive A diminutive is a word obtained by modifying a root word to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment, and sometimes to belittle s ...

form of ''gladius''), a

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

with sword-shaped leaves.

Predecessors and origins

According to

Polybius Polybius (; , ; ) was a Greek historian of the middle Hellenistic period. He is noted for his work , a universal history documenting the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean in the third and second centuries BC. It covered the period of 264–146 ...

, the sword used by the Roman army during the Battle of Telamon in 225 BC, though deemed superior to the cumbersome Gallic swords, was mainly useful to thrust. These thrusting swords used before the adoption of the Gladius were possibly based on the Greek '' xiphos''. Later, during the

Battle of Cannae The Battle of Cannae (; ) was a key engagement of the Second Punic War between the Roman Republic and Ancient Carthage, Carthage, fought on 2 August 216 BC near the ancient village of Cannae in Apulia, southeast Italy. The Carthaginians and ...

in 216 BC, they found Hannibal's Celtiberian

mercenaries A mercenary is a private individual who joins an War, armed conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any other official military. Mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rath ...

wielding swords that excelled at both slashing and thrusting. A text attributed to Polybius describes the adoption of this design by the Romans even before the end of the war, which canonical Polybius reaffirms by calling the later Roman sword ''gladius hispaniensis'' in

and ''iberiké machaira'' in

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

. It is believed

Scipio Africanus Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (, , ; 236/235–) was a Roman general and statesman who was one of the main architects of Rome's victory against Ancient Carthage, Carthage in the Second Punic War. Often regarded as one of the greatest milit ...

was the promoter of the change after the Battle of Cartagena in 209 BC, after which he set the inhabitants to produce weapons for the Roman army. In 70 BC, both Claudius Quadrigarius and Livy relate the story of Titus Manlius Torquatus using a "Hispanic sword" (''gladius Hispanus'') in a duel with a Gaul in 361 BC. However, the Gladius was not yet used by the Romans in the 4th century BC, and because of that this has been traditionally considered a terminological

anachronism An anachronism (from the Greek , 'against' and , 'time') is a chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time periods. The most common type ...

caused by the long established naming convention. It's possible that the Celtiberian sword was first adopted by Romans after encounters with Carthaginian mercenaries of that nationality during the

First Punic War The First Punic War (264–241 BC) was the first of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the early 3rd century BC. For 23 years, in the longest continuous conflict and grea ...

(264-241 BC), not the second. In any case, the ''gladius hispaniensis'' became particularly known in 200 BC during the

Second Macedonian War The Second Macedonian War (200–197 BC) was fought between Macedon, led by Philip V of Macedon, and Rome, allied with Pergamon and Rhodes. Philip was defeated and was forced to abandon all possessions in southern Greece, Thrace and Asia Minor. ...

, in which Macedonian soldiers became horrified at what Roman swords could do after an early cavalry skirmish. It has been suggested that the sword used by Roman cavalrymen was different from the infantry model, but most academics have discarded this view. Arguments for the Celtiberian source of the weapon have been reinforced in recent decades by discovery of early Roman ''gladii'' that seem to highlight that they were copies of Celtiberian models. The weapon developed in Iberia after La Tène I models, which were adapted to traditional Celtiberian techniques during the late 4th and early 3rd centuries BC. These weapons are quite original in their design, so that they cannot be confused with Gallic types. As for the origin of the word ''gladius'', one theory proposes the borrowing of the word from *''kladi''- during the Gallic wars, relying on the principle that ''K'' often became ''G'' in Latin.

Ennius Quintus Ennius (; ) was a writer and poet who lived during the Roman Republic. He is often considered the father of Roman poetry. He was born in the small town of Rudiae, located near modern Lecce (ancient ''Calabria'', today Salento), a town ...

attests the word ''gladius'' may have replaced ''ensis'', which until then was used mainly by poets.

Manufacturing

Technique

By the time of the

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( ) was the era of Ancient Rome, classical Roman civilisation beginning with Overthrow of the Roman monarchy, the overthrow of the Roman Kingdom (traditionally dated to 509 BC) and ending in 27 BC with the establis ...

, which flourished during the

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

and the steel-making process was known to the classical world. Pure iron is relatively soft, but pure iron is never found in nature. Natural iron ore contains various impurities in

solid solution A solid solution, a term popularly used for metals, is a homogeneous mixture of two compounds in solid state and having a single crystal structure. Many examples can be found in metallurgy, geology, and solid-state chemistry. The word "solutio ...

, which harden the reduced metal by producing irregular-shaped metallic crystals. The ''gladius'' was generally made out of steel. In Roman times, workers reduced ore in a

bloomery A bloomery is a type of metallurgical furnace once used widely for smelting iron from its iron oxides, oxides. The bloomery was the earliest form of smelter capable of smelting iron. Bloomeries produce a porous mass of iron and slag called ...

furnace. The resulting pieces were called ''blooms'', which they further worked to remove slag inclusions from the porous surface. A recent metallurgical study of two

Etruria Etruria ( ) was a region of Central Italy delimited by the rivers Arno and Tiber, an area that covered what is now most of Tuscany, northern Lazio, and north-western Umbria. It was inhabited by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization that f ...

n swords, one in the form of a Greek '' kopis'' from 7th century BC Vetulonia, the other in the form of a ''gladius Hispaniensis'' from 4th century BC

Clusium Clusium (, ''Klýsion'', or , ''Kloúsion''; Umbrian language, Umbrian:''Camars'') was an ancient city in Italy, one of several found at the same site overlapping the current municipality of Chiusi (Tuscany). The Roman city remodeled an earlier E ...

(

Chiusi Chiusi ( Etruscan: ''Clevsin''; Umbrian: ''Camars''; Ancient Greek: ''Klysion'', ''Κλύσιον''; Latin: ''Clusium'') is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Siena, Tuscany, Italy. History Clusium (''Clevsin or Camars'' in Etruscan) ...

), gives insight concerning the manufacture of Roman swords. The Chiusi sword comes from Romanized ''etruria''; thus, regardless of the names of the forms (which the authors do not identify), the authors believe the process was continuous from the Etruscans to the Romans. The Vetulonian sword was crafted by the pattern welding process from five blooms reduced at a temperature of . Five strips of varying carbon content were created. A central core of the sword contained the highest: 0.15–0.25% carbon. On its edges were placed four strips of low-carbon steel, 0.05–0.07%, and the whole thing was welded together by forging on the pattern of hammer blows. A blow increased the temperature sufficiently to produce a friction weld at that spot. Forging continued until the steel was cold, producing some central annealing. The sword was long. The Chiusian sword was created from a single bloom by forging from a temperature of . The carbon content increased from 0.05–0.08% at the back side of the sword to 0.35–0.4% on the blade, from which the authors deduce that some form of

carburization Carburizing, or carburising, is a heat treatment process in which iron or steel absorbs carbon while the metal is heated in the presence of a carbon-bearing material, such as charcoal or carbon monoxide. The intent is to make the metal harder ...

may have been used. The sword was long and was characterized by a wasp-waist close to the hilt. Romans continued to forge swords, both as composites and from single pieces. Inclusions of sand and rust weakened the two swords in the study, and no doubt limited the strength of swords during the Roman period.

Production

The craftsmen with the strategic task of making the ''gladii'' were called ''gladiarii''. They were part of the Roman legions as ''fabri'', enjoying the status of '' immunes''. There were also public workshops, ''fabricae'', dedicated to the making of the ''gladii''. Epigraphic attestations of the ''gladiarii'' have been found in Italy, especially in areas of ancient metallurgic tradition such as

Capua Capua ( ; ) is a city and ''comune'' in the province of Caserta, in the region of Campania, southern Italy, located on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain. History Ancient era The name of Capua comes from the Etruscan ''Capeva''. The ...

and

Aquileia Aquileia is an ancient Roman city in Italy, at the head of the Adriatic at the edge of the lagoons, about from the sea, on the river Natiso (modern Natisone), the course of which has changed somewhat since Roman times. Today, the city is small ( ...

Description

The word ''gladius'' acquired a general meaning as any type of sword. This use appears as early as the 1st century AD in the ''Biography of Alexander the Great'' by

Quintus Curtius Rufus Quintus Curtius Rufus (; ) was a Ancient Rome, Roman historian, probably of the 1st century, author of his only known and only surviving work, ''Historiae Alexandri Magni'', "Histories of Alexander the Great", or more fully ''Historiarum Alex ...

. The republican authors, however, appear to mean a specific type of sword, which is now known from archaeology to have had variants. ''Gladii'' were two-edged for cutting and had a tapered point for stabbing during thrusting. A solid grip was provided by a knobbed hilt added on, possibly with ridges for the fingers. Blade strength was achieved by welding together strips, in which case the sword had a channel down the centre, or by fashioning a single piece of high-carbon steel, rhomboidal in cross-section. The owner's name was often engraved or punched on the blade. The hilt of a Roman sword was the ''capulus''. It was often ornate, especially the sword-hilts of officers and dignitaries. Stabbing was a very efficient technique, as stabbing wounds, especially in the abdominal area, were almost always deadly. However, the ''gladius'' in some circumstances was used for cutting or slashing, as is indicated by

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding i ...

's account of the

Macedonian Wars The Macedonian Wars (214–148 BC) were a series of conflicts fought by the Roman Republic and its Greek allies in the eastern Mediterranean against several different major Greek kingdoms. They resulted in Roman control or influence over Ancient ...

, wherein the Macedonian soldiers were horrified to see dismembered bodies. Though the primary infantry attack was thrusting at stomach height, they were trained to take any advantage, such as slashing at kneecaps beneath the shield wall. The ''gladius'' was sheathed in a

scabbard A scabbard is a sheath for holding a sword, dagger, knife, or similar edged weapons. Rifles and other long guns may also be stored in scabbards by horse riders for transportation. Military cavalry and cowboys had scabbards for their saddle ring ...

mounted on a belt or shoulder strap. Some say the soldier reached across his body to draw it, and others claim that the position of the shield made this method of drawing impossible. A

centurion In the Roman army during classical antiquity, a centurion (; , . ; , or ), was a commander, nominally of a century (), a military unit originally consisting of 100 legionaries. The size of the century changed over time; from the 1st century BC ...

wore it on the opposite side as a mark of distinction. Towards the end of the 2nd century AD and during the 3rd century the '' spatha'' gradually took the place of the ''gladius'' in the Roman legions.

Types

Several different designs were used; among collectors and historical reenactors, the three primary kinds are known as the ''Mainz gladius'', the ''Fulham gladius'', and the ''Pompeii gladius'' (these names refer to where or how the canonical example was found). More recent archaeological finds have uncovered an earlier version, the ''gladius Hispaniensis''. The differences between these varieties are subtle. The original Hispanic sword, which was used during the republic, had a slight "wasp-waist" or "leaf-blade" curvature. The Mainz variety came into use on the frontier in the early empire. It kept the curvature, but shortened and widened the blade and made the point triangular. At home, the less battle-effective Pompeii version came into use. It eliminated the curvature, lengthened the blade, and diminished the point. The Fulham was a compromise, with straight edges and a long point.

''Gladius Hispaniensis''

''The gladius Hispaniensis'' was a Roman sword used from around 216 BC until 20 BC. Its blade had a length of , and the sword was long. The width of the sword was . It was the largest and heaviest of the ''gladii'', weighing or . This gladius was also the earliest and longest blade. It had a pronounced leaf-shape.

''Mainz Gladius''

''The Mainz Gladius'' is made of heavily corroded iron and a sheath made of tinned and gilded bronze. The blade was long and in width. The sword was long. The sword weighed . The point of the sword was more triangular than the Gladius Hispaniensis. The Mainz Gladius still had wasp-waisted curves. The decoration on the scabbard illustrates the ceding of military victory to

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

by Tiberius after a successful Alpine campaign. Augustus is semi-nude, and sits in the pose of Jupiter, flanked by the Roman gods of Victory and Mars Ultor, while

Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus ( ; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was Roman emperor from AD 14 until 37. He succeeded his stepfather Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC to Roman politician Tiberius Cl ...

, in military dress, presents Augustus with a statuette of Victory.

''Fulham gladius''

The ''Fulham gladius'' or ''Mainz-Fulham gladius'' was a Roman sword that was used after Aulus Plautius' invasion of Britain in 43 AD. The Romans used it until the end of the 1st century. The ''Fulham gladius'' has a triangular tip. The length of the blade is . The length of the sword is . The width of the blade is . The swords weighs (wooden hilt). A full size replica can be seen at

Fulham Palace Fulham Palace lies on the north bank of the River Thames in Fulham, London, previously in the former English county of Middlesex. It is the site of the Manor of Fulham dating back to Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Saxon times and in the c ...

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies in a loop on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea, London, Chelsea ...

''Pompeii gladius''

The ''Pompeii gladius'' was named by modern historians after the Roman town of

Pompeii Pompeii ( ; ) was a city in what is now the municipality of Pompei, near Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. Along with Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Villa Boscoreale, many surrounding villas, the city was buried under of volcanic ash and p ...

. This type of ''gladius'' was by far the most popular one. Four examples of the sword type were found in Pompeii, with others turning up elsewhere. The sword has parallel cutting edges and a triangular tip. This is the shortest of the ''gladii''. It is often confused with the '' spatha'', which was a longer, slashing weapon used initially by mounted ''auxilians''. Over the years, the Pompeii got longer, and these later versions are called semi-''spathes''. The length of the blade was . The length of the sword is . The width of the blade is . The sword weighs (wooden hilt).

Notes

This is only true for the

nominative case In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants ...

; For more information, see the

Latin declension Latin declension is the set of patterns according to which Latin language, Latin words are Declension, declined—that is, have their endings altered to show grammatical case, Grammatical number, number and Grammatical gender, gender. Nouns, pron ...

page.

References

Significant Contributions in the Study of European Arms and Armor
bibliography by the Arms and Armor Society of America.

* John William Humphrey, John Peter Oleson, Andrew Neil Sherwood
Greek and Roman Technology: a sourcebook
*

External links

The articles in the links below often differ both in theory and in detail. They should not necessarily be understood as fully professional articles but should be appreciated for their presentational value.

Pictures of ancient swords

at the Roman Numismatic Gallery (romancoins.info)

Reenactments, reconstructions, experimental archaeology

photos of historical reconstructionists drawing and holding gladii. * * *

Articles on the history or manufacture of the sword

* Ross Cowan
Gladius Gallicus
an introduction to the Gallic-type swords used by the Romans prior to the adoption of the ''gladius Hispaniensis''

(myArmoury.com article) * Janet Lang
Study of the Metallography of Some Roman Swords
* Niko Silvester

* Richard F. Burton, ttp://www.jrbooksonline.com/HTML-docs/Book_of_the_Sword.htm The Sword Amongst the Barbarians (Early Roman Empire).*Taylor, Michael J. "Panoply and Identity during the Roman Republic." ''Papers of the British School at Rome'' 88 (2020), 31-65

{{Swords by region 3rd-century BC establishments in the Roman Republic 3rd-century disestablishments in the Roman Empire Ancient European swords Ancient Roman legionary equipment Edged and bladed weapons Iberian weapons Roman swords