Why change to the Spatha?

[Matthew Amt]

Just a simple question: Were actual ancient spathae incredibly well balanced?

That's a good question, and I'd love to see a lot more good data on ANY Roman swords, particularly thickness, distal taper, etc. There just isn't much out there. Most books show only one cross-section of a blade, if any, and it's usually such a tiny drawing that nothing can be concluded from it besides an idea of the shape.

In Vol. 8 of JRMES there are several hispaniensis blades shown, and fragments of others. And some of them really look to me like "sharpened crow bars", with quoted thicknesses of 11 or 12 mm! They don't seem to taper much, either. Now, these are just drawings, so it's impossible to say if much of that could be due to corrosion products on the blade, remains of the scabbard, etc. But they still don't look like finely balanced weapons.

And of course the hispaniensis is not a spatha, but I don't have any spatha information. Maybe that new book will help!

Matthew