Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Iron xiphos, Thessaloniki museum. 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.
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.
While Xenophon states that the xiphos was the conventional sword used by the Greek soldier of his time, he recommended the makhaira for cavalry. "I recommend a kopis rather than a xiphos, because from the height of a horse's back the cut of a machaira will serve you better than the thrust of a xiphos." (Xenophon, 12:11). [6]
These swords eventually evolved into, among others, the Roman gladius and spatha, and the Greek xiphos and the Germanic sword of the Roman Iron Age, which evolved into the Viking sword in the 8th century. There are two kinds of Celtic sword.
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
A sword of the Iron Age Cogotas II culture in Spain. According to Polybius, 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. [8] These thrusting swords used before the adoption of the Gladius were possibly based on the Greek xiphos. [9]
The Ancient Greeks often used single-edged blades in warfare, as attested to by art and literature; however, the double-edged, straight, and more martially versatile xiphos is more widely represented. Greek heavy infantry hoplites favored straight swords, but the downward curve of the kopis made it especially suited to mounted warfare.
The term xiphoid originates from the Greek word xiphos, which means 'straight sword', bearing a resemblance to the process's tip. The Latin equivalent, processus xiphoides, translates to the xiphoid process. [8] [9] The writings of the Greek physician Galen refer to Os xyphoides, a translation of the Greek phrase ξιφοειδές ...