{"id":50453,"date":"2019-09-22T02:00:36","date_gmt":"2019-09-22T06:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=50453"},"modified":"2020-01-19T12:53:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-19T17:53:00","slug":"gladius-vs-spatha-why-did-the-empire-abandon-the-gladius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2019\/09\/22\/gladius-vs-spatha-why-did-the-empire-abandon-the-gladius\/","title":{"rendered":"<em>Gladius<\/em> VS <em>Spatha<\/em> &#8211; Why Did The Empire Abandon The <em>Gladius<\/em>?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"853\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mYK2LntJpj4\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Metatron<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Published on 11 Feb 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If the famous <em>Gladius<\/em>\/rectangular <em>Scutum<\/em> combo had proven to be so effective for so many centuries why did the Late Empire Romans choose to abandon it in favour of a <em>spatha<\/em>\/round shield combination? Here is what I think.<\/p>\n<p><em>Gladius<\/em> was one Latin word for sword, and is used to represent the primary sword of Ancient Roman foot soldiers.<\/p>\n<p>A fully equipped Roman legionary after the reforms of Gaius Marius was armed with a shield (<em>scutum<\/em>), one or two javelins (<em>pila<\/em>), a sword (<em>gladius<\/em>), often a dagger (<em>pugio<\/em>), and, perhaps in the later Empire period, darts (<em>plumbatae<\/em>). Conventionally, soldiers threw javelins to disable the enemy&#8217;s shields and disrupt enemy formations before engaging in close combat, for which they drew the <em>gladius<\/em>. A soldier generally led with the shield and thrust with the sword. All <em>gladius<\/em> types appear to have been suitable for cutting and chopping as well as thrusting.<\/p>\n<p><em>Gladius<\/em> is a Latin masculine second declension noun. Its (nominative and vocative) plural is <em>gladi\u012b<\/em>. However, <em>gladius<\/em> in Latin refers to any sword, not specifically the modern definition of a <em>gladius<\/em>. The word appears in literature as early as the plays of Plautus (<em>Casina<\/em>, <em>Rudens<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>Modern English words derived from <em>gladius<\/em> include gladiator (&#8220;swordsman&#8221;) and gladiolus (&#8220;little sword&#8221;, from the diminutive form of <em>gladius<\/em>), a flowering plant with sword-shaped leaves.<\/p>\n<p><em>Gladii<\/em> 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 center, or by fashioning a single piece of high-carbon steel, rhomboidal in cross-section. The owner&#8217;s name was often engraved or punched on the blade. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Screenshot_2019-09-22-Gladius-VS-Spatha-\u2013-Why-Did-The-Empire-Abandon-The-Gladius-.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Screenshot_2019-09-22-Gladius-VS-Spatha-\u2013-Why-Did-The-Empire-Abandon-The-Gladius--480x270.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-51221\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Screenshot_2019-09-22-Gladius-VS-Spatha-\u2013-Why-Did-The-Empire-Abandon-The-Gladius--480x270.png 480w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Screenshot_2019-09-22-Gladius-VS-Spatha-\u2013-Why-Did-The-Empire-Abandon-The-Gladius--150x84.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Screenshot_2019-09-22-Gladius-VS-Spatha-\u2013-Why-Did-The-Empire-Abandon-The-Gladius--768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Screenshot_2019-09-22-Gladius-VS-Spatha-\u2013-Why-Did-The-Empire-Abandon-The-Gladius--853x480.png 853w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Screenshot_2019-09-22-Gladius-VS-Spatha-\u2013-Why-Did-The-Empire-Abandon-The-Gladius-.png 930w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Metatron Published on 11 Feb 2017 If the famous Gladius\/rectangular Scutum combo had proven to be so effective for so many centuries why did the Late Empire Romans choose to abandon it in favour of a spatha\/round shield combination? Here is what I think. Gladius was one Latin word for sword, and is used to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,7,5,663],"tags":[1299,1102,1103,1343,678],"class_list":["post-50453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-history","category-military","category-weapons","tag-bladedweapons","tag-cavalry","tag-infantry","tag-romanempire","tag-swords"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-d7L","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50453"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51222,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50453\/revisions\/51222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}