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Roman era reenactor holding a replica late Roman spatha. The spatha was a type of straight and long sword, measuring between 0.5 and 1 metre (20 and 40 inches), with a handle length of between 18 and 20 centimetres (7 and 8 inches), in use in the territory of the Roman Empire during the 1st to 6th centuries AD.
From the early 3rd century, legionaries and cavalrymen began to wear their swords on the left side, perhaps because the scutum had been abandoned and the spatha had replaced the gladius. [4] An early find of Roman spathae in a native Germanic context (as opposed to Roman military camps in Germania) is the deposit of sixty-seven Roman swords in ...
Gladius (Classical Latin: [ˈɡɫadiʊs]) is a Latin word properly referring to the type of sword that was used by ancient Roman 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.
The spatha was a double-edged longsword used by the Romans. The idea for the spatha came from the swords of ancient Celts in Germany and Britain. It was longer than the gladius, and had more reach, so the spatha was most popular with soldiers in the cavalry. The blade could range between 0.5 and 1 m (1 ft 8 in and 3 ft 3 in) long while the ...
Re-enactor with Pompeii-type gladius The Mainz Gladius on display at the British Museum, London. Gladius is the general Latin word for 'sword'. In the Roman Republic, the term gladius Hispaniensis (Spanish sword) referred (and still refers) specifically to the short sword, 60 cm (24 inches) long, used by Roman legionaries from the 3rd century BC.
The Roman legionaries and other forces of the Roman military, until the 2nd century A.D., used the gladius as a short thrusting sword effectively with the scutum, a type of shield, in battle. According to Vegetius , the Romans mainly used underhanded stabs and thrusts, because one thrust into the gut would kill an enemy faster than slashes or ...
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 20 January 2025. A retiarius ("net fighter") with a trident and cast net, fighting a secutor (79 AD mosaic). There were many different types of gladiators in ancient Rome. Some of the first gladiators had been prisoners-of-war, and so some of the earliest types of gladiators were experienced fighters ...
This being the general "spatha" article, its scope spans the entire first millennium, but emphasis should be on the Roman era spatha (i.e. the first half of the millennium), as we have dedicated sub-articles on the Migration period sword (450-700) and the Viking sword (700-1100). --dab 16:40, 12 September 2010 (UTC)