Why change to the Spatha?

[Robert Vermaat]

And don’t forget that that during the imperial age, the enemy had improved its armor after repeated decades of loses

Had they? Didn't the enemies of the 3rd and 4th centuries include mainly Germanic and Gothic people with little or no armor?

Hi Matthew,

No, that´s not correct. If at all, the armour of the Germanic foes would have increased during this period.

I´m still of the opinion that the style of fighting amongst the enemy made the difference. In the East, I guess there was not that much difference between Parthian and sassanian armoured cavalry, but even so as an infantryman I would like a longer sword more than a short one, I mean, after I´ve lost my trusted spears.
But in the West, the enemy had changed - from onrushing droves, the German foes had learned to team up and fight in formations that could no longer be broken up easily. Apparently, the gladius as a side-stabber would no longer do when a shield wall was just that - a wall of tall shields. So you needed a bit of reach to get unarmoured bits of the enemy, something offered by the spatha rather than the gladius, maybe?

[Tarbicus]

So, basically, you are going with the theory that says Romans werew Crap at armoury? Why is it so impossible to imagine a sword of 24 inches being well balanced, and also a spatha, which isn't really tha tlong after all! Have you seen the quality of workmanship atained on ancient myceanan bronze blades? I can't see why this is such a leap of faith..... :?

Because it's exactly that; a leap of faith. All I'd like to see is actual empirical evidence of the spatha being so well balanced. What I get cautious about is when our idea of what a spatha should be like is based purely on "I like it that way, so the Romans must have", and not on actual facts.

And if it would cost 1/4 of a milion to make a really super dooper blade today, surely a decent one at 500 is a bargain? Or even a thousand?......

Of course it is, and a lot of the cost was to do with the hilt furnishings using actual precious stones, high quality precious metals, etc. But it doesn't get around the story of the young guy who didn't want to go into a duel and have to bend his sword back into shape after every third blow, just like the Celts.

[Paullus Scipio]

So, basically, you are going with the theory that says Romans werew Crap at armoury?

.

...gentlemen, I fear your 'quality of ancient swords' debate is descending into an either/or one......when the reality is almost certainly that sword quality varied, then as now, from cheap and nasty, bend or shatter the first time you used it in earnest and hold an edge for about 30 seconds; to bend it with your foot hard and watch it spring back every time and be razor- sharp without being touched for over 200 years.......I have real swords of both qualities in my modest collection! D

Kormak had to fight a duel with Bersi... "He had an iron sword of his own, but thought he would have a better chance if he didn't have to stop and straighten it under his foot every third blow (!)." He then goes to find Skeggi to borrow the sword Skofnung.

.....which illustrates the above point ( that sword quality varied) rather nicely !! wink:

[Endre Fodstad]

J. Kim Siddorn, Viking Weapons & Warfare, Tempus Publishing. The reason old swords were valued so highly was precisely because they managed to survive intact for so long. He puts the modern equivalent price of some swords at £250,000 to be made. Kormak had to fight a duel with Bersi... "He had an iron sword of his own, but thought he would have a better chance if he didn't have to stop and straighten it under his foot every third blow (!)." He then goes to find Skeggi to borrow the sword Skofnung.

Ah. Siddorn. Well, let's put it this way; Siddorn, while being one of the great-beards of the Regio Anglorum, gets quite a lot of his facts wrong (he credits the german WW2 pilot's helmet found near Kiev as a viking helmet, for example, an old tale spread in reenactor's circles) and has a tendency to take the more unreliable sagas a bit too literally, to put it mildly (good pictures, though). Kormak's saga is one of the oldest icelandic sagas and contains quite a few literary set-ups that have to be taken with a grain of salt, such as the entire process that gets Kormak Skofnung - you see, that blade has a lively "history" dating back to the iron age and the legendary king Rolf Krake: a magical possessed blade that survives burial and being dug up by Skeggi three hundred years later, not to mention also making an appearance in the Laxdoalasaga, surviving a shipwreck or two, et cetera. I think one will be hard-pressed to find any such examples from the historical sagas.

[Tarbicus]

Ah. Siddorn. Well, let's put it this way; Siddorn, while being one of the great-beards of the Regio Anglorum, gets quite a lot of his facts wrong and has a tendency to take the sagas a bit literally. Kormak's saga is one of the oldest icelandic sagas and contains quite a few literary set-ups that have to be taken with a grain of salt, such as the one that gets Kormak Skofnung - you see, that blade has a lively "history" dating back to the iron age: a magical possessed blade that survives burial and being dug up by Skeggi three hundred years later, not to mention also making an appearance in the Laxdoalasaga, surviving a shipwreck or two, et cetera. I think one will be hard-pressed to find any such examples from the historical sagas.

Okay, I can accept Siddorn needs to be treated with caution (although treating people wit hcaution can sometimes need to be treated with caution in itself wink: ).

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I wouldn't disagree at all with the statement that sword quality varied greatly, but it is the blade I am referring to. You can put gold and jewels on a very poorly crafted blade, and charge a fortune, but a fine blade with wood and brass fittings would be worth far more to a soldier in the field....spatha or gladius! And I don't think it is such a leap of faith, IMHO :wink:

[john m roberts]

One of the sagas (I'm too lazy to look it up now) mentions a man who owned a sword with a finely ornamented silver hilt and a crap blade. He was so vain that he continued to carry it even after the blade had failed him in a fight. In a later combat, an enemy razzed him for it: "Still carrying the silver-hilted sword, I see!" Some fools cared more for good looks than for function (a not uncommon quality today).

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

That is their choice, I don't have to agree with it though! :lol: :wink:

[Endre Fodstad]

Okay, I can accept Siddorn needs to be treated with caution (although treating people wit hcaution can sometimes need to be treated with caution in itself wink: ).

As I know the sagas, I tend to look at it in the same way as I look at statements that someone "ripped their maille apart" (as in physically ripping a suit of maille apart, not "ripping it off" in modern parlance) to run or swim away, or that people swim a few hundred feet underwater in full armour, or that certain "bow-strong" kings shot war arrows to a distance of over two kilometeres (which would exceed turkish arrow records as recorded in the 16th century with flight arrows and bows considered too strong to use in war effectively) - not a quote necessarily meant to be taken entirely literally. :wink:

But heavens, of course sword quality varied greatly, or some blades (such as the Ulfberth ones) seemingly being particulary valuable. I just think it is a pretty long leap from a single possibly rhetorical line in Kormak's Saga to it being a common problem with viking age weapons.

Siddorns book is not all bad; I'd certainly recommend it for the interested. It is, whoever, more a "compendium of reenactor's knowledge" (which can mean both great practical experience and some horrid misconceptions) packaged as a book on viking weapons and warfare than I'd like.

[Robert]

Perhaps it's good to realise the Romans and the rest around at that time did not have steel at their disposal and even our modern "mild steel" has a good bit more carbon in it then their iron swords.
This also why you have to keep folding a iron blade when trying to forge a high quality sword, you trap the thin carbon/iron layer (=steel) where the iron has picked up the carbon form the charcoal forge fire inside the fold, spreading the surface steel through the iron during the forging proces. A higher carbon blade can be thinner then any old iron and still have enough strength to withstand hitting someone/something with it. It is easier to balance a thinner blade, as the weight of steel versus iron is the same. One can make a very good blade of mild steel bought off the shelf and be acurate to the period. Having just taken up forging, I will certainly try a blade in a year or two (when I have learned the craft!). May your spatha's always swing true

[Endre Fodstad]

Yes and no, Robert. They could make decent carbon steel in their bloomeries, but the yield was relatively low; the taller furnaces of the early to high middle ages "solve" this problem primarily by increasing the size of the bloom, and consider also that the japanese Tatara bloomery, from which they refined the steel used for their weapons until the (european) modern period, is not fundamentally different from an european roman or medieval bloomery. Folding helps, of course, but they could get their hands on high-quality steel.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I was under the impression that that was one of the features of the gladius hispaniensis, the higher quality of the blades, which attracted the Romans to them in the first place? :?

[Robert]

All true, but to arm the multitude, they turned out a lot of swords and local iron was not the thing IMHO. I would be very interested in some more info on Roman ironworking and their foundries, as this could be a high point in the proposed themepark. Great experimental archeology Could someone recommend a book or site or beter still, an expert?

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Iron for the Eagles?
Thats all I have found so far, but there must be other in depth studies, which are available to the public.

[Endre Fodstad]

All true, but to arm the multitude, they turned out a lot of swords and local iron was not the thing IMHO. I would be very interested in some more info on Roman ironworking and their foundries, as this could be a high point in the proposed themepark. Great experimental archeology Could someone recommend a book or site or beter still, an expert?

There has been done disappointedly little widely distributed work on roman ferrous metallurgy and iron foundries, sadly. Some archaeologists interested in water power have argued for its use in roman iron production, but even if they've received a good reception among their peers for their results (which sometimes puzzle me: how anyone can claim 15 kg heavy ore smashing rocks and regular patterns in the ore anvils have been mechanized with waterpower when we have modern and widespread anthropological documentation of africans forging extremely precicely and quickly with "muhambo" (sic) rocks of around 20kgs is beyond me) they don't go much into the precice processes themselves.

In britain several roman bloomeries have been excavated (the aforementioned ore-smashing rocks are from there somewhere), but I've yet to see much of it in general literature although (as usual) it is available on JSTOR and similar sites.

There have also been a growing number of metallurgical analysis of roman imperial material in recent years, however, which raises hopes for more insight into the matter; not necessarily from the cross-sections (who provide rather less information than many archaeometallurgists would like you, and make the archaeologists, believe) but from increased interest in the subject.

If anyone has anything more on the subject besides the rather lacklustre descriptions of probably foundry sites I've seen so far, I'd be interested too!. Perhaps when David A.Scott finally publishes his Iron follow-up book to this amazing work: http://www.amazon.com/Copper-Bronze-Art ... 0892366389

he has collected more.