Any armourers?

[Jon Eaton]

I think Matt L is right in that it was a completely different hilt that was placed under the pillow by the chamberlain. This changes the timescale of the operation as presumably the hilt would have had to have been an exact replica of the original in order not to alarm Domitian. This indicates that the switching of the weapon was a longer process than merely knocking the blade off during Parthenius' lunchbreak!
PS thanks for everyones help.

[Tasciavanous]

Would it have to be an exact replica? I would have thought something about the right shape would have done after all by the time Domitian found out it was a bit late! He clearly didn't check the dagger very carefully, the lack of blade would have been evident very quickly if he had.

[Matt Lukes]

Good point, much easier and more cunning. I have a tendency to over-complicate everything. :?

OH I know all about that :lol:

[Nathan Ross]

The trouble is that Dio clearly describes Parthenius having removed the blade from the weapon, rather than just switching it with a bladeless one! I don't know what word Dio uses - it's usually translated as sword - but Suetonius writes pugionem, clearly meaning a smallish dagger, probably of the military type. Either way, there are same problems with 'removal' of the blade as have been mentioned - before screw threads, any blade would have to be rivetted to the hilt.

The gist of the source accounts does suggest that the whole thing was done quite hastily - the timing's a little garbled, but it seems this blade-removing business was accomplished while Domitian was in the court room, prior to taking his afternoon nap - since Suetonius mentions that the emperor had awakened in terror the night before, and would surely have noticed at that point if somebody had been messing with his dagger, that leaves a single morning for Parthenius to act.

I reckon, therefore, that Tarbicus' idea is probably the best answer - a smithy would have been necessary, but there would have a fair few of them in central Rome, an easy jog from the Palatine. Parthenius could have filched the dagger from under the pillow and sent it by his swiftest slave to the nearest blacksmith to break the blade, then have it returned in under an hour. Another point - surely the dagger would have been in a scabbard? A little risky to sleep with a naked blade under your pillow, even if you're as paranoid as Domitian. In which case the deception would have been more easily concealed - the stub of the broken blade would have aligned the hilt with the scabbard, and should Domitian chance to glance beneath his pillow all would seem okay...

[aitor iriarte]

Yes, probably the dagger's blade was broken or sawed off, just leaving a stump long enough as to remain tucked inside the sheath and thus deceive Domitian.

Aitor

[Matt Lukes]

Indeed it does seem a simpler explanation that Parthenius broke the blade of Domitian's pugio- since it's my understanding that Roman steel wasn't particularly consistent or of really high quality, it seems plausible. But I would be a pain in the backside and point out that the inherent issue with taking Dio's account as absolute truth is that unless he got it directly from Parthenius, it's second hand and therefore dependent on the source- who may have heard it from someone who heard it from someone... for all we know the whole thing was made up to make Parthenius sound good :lol:

But as I wrote way back at the beginning, I wouldn't think the Emperor would have just an average dagger, so for all we know its design was such that removing the blade wasn't such an issue at all.

Matt

[Crispvs]

Sorry for not contributing to this until now. I have only just had an opportunity to read it.

If the suriving sample of known Roman daggers is anything to go by, by Domitian's time the vast majority of military daggers had type II (rod) rather than type I (frame) tangs. These were not rivetted to the handles and seem to have become detatched quite frequently. I know of two daggers with this type of tang which had been fitted with hastily made replacement handles. If Domitian's dagger was of a standard military type it might have been relatively easy for Parthenius to remove the handle from the dagger. If he had been well prepared (which I am sure he was) he could easily (and seemingly innocently) have brought a stylus, large headed pin, spoon or anything else similar with him and inserted the pointed end into the aperture in the handle and the other end into the sheath, thus allowing the handle to remain tenuously attached to the sheath.

I am not saying that this is the ultimate solution to the problem but I think it it certainly a possibility, given the surviving artifacts (and assuming that Suetonius, who could easily have been read by Dio Cassius a century later, did not make the story up for effect).

Crispvs