Sarmatian origins of the spatha?

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Alan,

While I usually agree with you on most points, I'm not too sure Sarmatian-Alanic recruits discarded their "native" armor and weapons in favor of prevelent Roman ones. By the late 2nd and 3rd centuries, we see an increase in longer swords, spathas. This could be a steppe influence or possibly "self generating," the latter being doubtful.

We have a "Roman cavalryman" on the Arch of Galarius (c.300) wearing a nice early spangenhelm. The funerery stele of the draconarius at the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, shows a man who can be no other than a Sarmatian, wearing a native-styled helmet, scale armor, with (the real clincher) an akinakes strapped to his right leg. I would think he was not a fresh recruit, but someone who was endeared to his men, perhaps even a veteran. I'm thinking of John Conyard's statement in the above "recycled" post. The introduction of weapons and armor, to each culture-- Roman and Sarmatian-- was a two-way road. And you do not discard something that works if it's not broken. :grin:

I think we are still in agreement, because I should probably have elaborated.
Indeed, I did not mean that all native equipment was replaced with Roman arms & armour when entering Roman service.
First of all, if a soldiers (individual or in a group) only entered service for a campaign, he would probably have retained what he add, only adding material he liked better or did not have in the first place. Those spangenhelmets could well belong to such a group, or to the next category.
Next, a group entering the service for a prolonged period of time or indeed the rest of their military career, would not have dropped their arms & armour immediately. I agree that if it was good enough, it would have been retained until replacement was necessary. But at that moment, I think that in most cases the Roman fabrica would have provided the replacement material. That would in some cases, I agree, include arms & armour copied from the non-Roman troops.
Only in the case of specialist weapons or when the fabrica did not provide anything similar, I think that native weapons would have been retained. Not helmets I think (hence my thoughts about those early spangenhelmets), but perhaps swords. As weapons trade across the border was forbidden, I think that maybe a unit of Sarmatians might have used their own smith to provide a non-Roman weapon, until either the demand ended or the ability of the smith to make such items. All non-Roman troops eventually Romanised.