12-29-2014, 09:55 PM
Quote:The Falcata swords were made very well too. I have heard that the Spanish buried pieces of steel in the ground and then pulled them out to make sword blades from them, the dirt corroding the weak steel from them.
Bryan, the word falcata is a more modern worn and one of the only historical references is in Seneca's De Beneficiis (5:24) where he writes about the words of a veteran in court pleading his case in front of Julius Caesar:
"Nor would you recognize that helmet if you saw it: it was split by a Hispanian saber (machaera Hispana)."
The "Hispanian saber" here seems to be the falcata.
I know the type of sword existed, I'm just stating that Philon of Byzantium probably probably didn't refer to whatever sword he was describing in the abovementioned description of sword flexibility as a falcata or even using the Latin description you provided. He was Greek, he wrote in Greek, so I wonder what exact words were chosen. I don't have access to an actual copy of the work, so I wonder if Tony Drake could provide it, since he corrected me.
Regardless of whatever sword it mentioned, ultimately what I was driving at was that swords were in fact able to be made quite flexible and springy in the time period in question, which is kind of counter to what Jürgen wrote. If the methods existed in the 2nd century BC, they probably also existed in the Roman world by the late 1st Century BC and well into the 2nd Century AD, when the Mainz sword was used. Considering that it was a cut and thrust sword, it probably would have been a bit flexible
Burying iron in ground would cause oxidation and the removal of unwanted non-iron impurities/elements, correct?
