The Abandonment of the Gladius for the Spatha - Why?

[tlclark]

But the reason I mentioned that the Germanics is that the suggestion is that the spatha was adopted due to the influence of barbarians in the late Roman Army. The bulk of those barbarians at that stage were Germanics (and some Huns and Indo-Iranians) rather than Celts.

This is always a thorny issue. By the time they became the predominant force in the Roman military, the 'barbarians' had been under Roman control for about 200 years. Most were Christians, and nearly all of them thought of themselves as "Romans"

Under the criteria of many historians, I'm still British!! The 'migrational' tag is equally arbitrary.

Clovis, the founder of the Merovingian line in France celebrated a triumph in Roman style!

And Charlemagne when he goes to Rome is still required to put on 'Roman' clothes.

we see this sharp break in late antiquity, the people at the time almost certainly did not.

The point is, the spatha is a Roman weapon, not a German one. I don't think we can credit/blame the Germans with its popularity, especially if they didn't even think of themselves as "Germans".

I think the reasons for the change are more practical, and less cultural.

Travis