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Stone's Glossary has xiphos being a name used by Homer for a sword. The entry in the book says that the sword had a double-edged blade widest at about two-thirds of its length from the point, and ending in a very long point. [2] The word is attested in Mycenaean Greek Linear B form as 𐀥𐀯𐀟𐀁, qi-si-pe-e.
Makhaira entered classical Latin as machaera, "a sword". The dimachaerus was a type of Roman gladiator that fought with two swords. In modern Greek, μαχαίρι means "knife". Modern scholars distinguish the makhaira from the kopis (an ancient term of similar meaning) based on whether the blade is forward curved (kopis), or not (makhaira). [3]
The acinaces, also transliterated as akinakes (Greek ἀκῑνάκης) or akinaka (unattested Old Persian *akīnaka h, Sogdian kynʼk) is a type of dagger or xiphos (short sword) used mainly in the first millennium BCE in the eastern Mediterranean Basin, especially by the Medes, [1] Scythians, Persians and Caspians, [2] then by the Greeks.
Xiphos: Greek one-handed, double-edged Iron Age straight shortsword; Xyele: The short, slightly curved, one-edged sword of the Spartans. [3] Migration Period swords. Spatha: continuation, evolved into Ring-sword (ring-spatha, ring-hilt spatha), Merovingian period; Viking sword or Carolingian sword; Krefeld type
The difference in meaning between kopis and makhaira (μάχαιρα, another Greek word, meaning "chopper" or "short sword", "dagger") is not entirely clear in ancient texts, [5] but modern specialists tend to discriminate between single-edged cutting swords, those with a forward curve being classed as kopides, those without as makhairai. [6]
Hoplites mounted on horseback likely used a heavier, curved sword known as the kopis, meaning "chopper" in the Greek language. [2] [9] Light infantry known as peltasts would carry a number of javelins used to pepper enemy formations, avoiding close combat whenever possible. The job of the peltast was not to engage in formation combat, therefore ...
In Greek and Roman art it is variously depicted, but it seems that originally it was a khopesh-like sickle-sword from Egypt. [2] Later depictions often show it as a combination of a sword and sickle, and this odd interpretation is explicitly described in the 2nd century Leucippe and Clitophon. [3]
The short sword was a secondary weapon, used if or when their spears were broken or lost, or if the phalanx broke rank. The xiphos usually had a blade around 60 centimetres (24 in) long; however, those used by the Spartans were often only 30–45 centimetres long.