The Abandonment of the Gladius for the Spatha - Why?

[Martin Wallgren]

A gladius seems like a glorified meat cleaver to me, meant to sunder fingers from hands and limbs from bodies. I can't imagine trying to parry and thrust with the thing, but that's just me.

You weren’t really supposed to parry with the sword, which was way too brittle and expensive. The shield was there for parrying and absorbing blows.

I agree. If one have to use a blade to defend yourself, do a displacement. Don´t block static or chop into the other weapon. Deflect in so the opponents weapond glides of your blade and keep agression and counterattack. Use all means you got, kick hit with the shield or secondary weapon. And one thing many inexperienced fighter often forget is to movement and fottwork. Don´t come in in a straight line. Imagine that you have a clock under your feet with 12 in the direktion of your opponent. Move in between 1 and 2 on the right or 10 and 11 on the left.

Strikes and swinging is I think quite over estimated in swordplay and especially in ancient times.

I dunno. I realize there is a tradition of viewing the gladius as primarily a stabbing weapon and the Roman legionary as scientifically trained to always stab in preference of slashing, but I find it a bit hard to believe.

For one thing the slash or cut is the most natural and instinctive way of wielding a sword. It also offers more reach than a thrust, especially if you’re using a shield and can’t lunge like a fencer does. Reach is of course a very good thing in combat, when I presume even a trained soldier is instinctively trying not to get too close to an opponent who is wielding an equally sharp instrument.

For us who have seen it done in that way in movies all our life, yes. However a friend of mine, Peter Johnson who is a swordsmith, headdisgner on Albion Swords and one of the leading researchers on swords in the world, said to me that one of the big mistakes people make when they think of swords is that it is a sharpened metal club when it rather is a prolonged spearhead with a shortened shaft.

I just don’t buy the entire idea about the legionary as a robotic stabbing machine in combat. Besides, the slash is also the attack of choice when cutting someone down from behind (which is how most ancient warriors probably died, i.e. during the pursuit) and for a cavalryman.

Why is it the attack of choice! A stab is more likely to kill, it goes deeper generally.

Fencing today is all about thrusting, yet the foils is thin and sharp. Doesn't that describe the spatha and not the gladius?

A spatha may be thinner than a gladius, but it’s not thin in the sense of a fencing sword!

I actually believe fencing may have something to do with the fascination about thrusting legionaries. The key move in fencing is the lunging thrust, which is superior to slashing because it allows the fencer to pinpoint the strike and uses the legs for power. Fencing, however, was developed late in history. In fact it was developed when swords were already being relegated to secondary status on the battlefield in the 15/1600s.

Well, what about the very early bronzesword without tang that at least Eward Oakeshott thought of as pure stabbing swords. They are actually clled "Rapiers" if I´m not mistakend.

Fighting with a shield and a heavier sword on the battlefield is a totally different thing from fencing, and a move like the lunge exposes the attacker far too much and also assumes that you can use the sword to quickly parry a counterattack. With a heavier sword, like most battle swords throughout history, this is simply not possible and the footwork required isn’t possible either if you’re wearing armour.

I disagree! It is quite the same. It is the sidestepping that is the key.

This was kind of longwinded, but I suspect (with no concrete evidence to back it up) that the mental image of fencing and its preference for the thrust may have influenced our perception of older fighting techniques. Wild speculation on my part of course, but it wouldn’t be the first time it happened.

It is healthy to speculate and it is good for the development of the mind. It is also good to chalenge old doctrines.

Goldsworthy, for example, explains how historians have interpreted the Roman rank system to fit with that of their own country: German historians assumed lots of NCO ranks because that’s how the German army did it in the late 1800s and early 1900s, British historians saw the centurions as having the same important role as their NCOs because that’s how the British army does it, etc.

Doesn´t sound unlikley. My angle is from the practisioner of Western Martial Arts though, based on manuals from the 13th, 14th, and 15 century.

There's also the fact that the actual mechanics of combat in the medieval and other areas have been poorly understood (and probably still are; witness the continued debates over the role of the longbow or mounted knights), so it's hard to make comparisons with other "relevant" eras. When dealing with so precious little evidence as there usually is in an ancient context, it’s very easy to over interpret or go off on the wrong tangent.

you could be right, but I think we who do practise WMA is closer than one who don´t.

…e.g. the medieval thrusting swords designed for piercing plate armour could also be used for thrusting.

I don´t follow you here ?!

Sorry, a typo on my part. What I meant was that even the medieval thrusting swords that were designed specifically for piercing plate armour (which was impervious to cuts) could also be used for cutting and stabbing, they were just better at stabbing than other swords.

No worries!

My point was that dedicated stabbing swords seem to be very rare throughout history, and my guess (this post is full of them) is that a sword that isn’t general-purpose is fairly impractical on the battlefield. So it’s part of my questioning of the stabbing gladius hypothesis.

Anyway, this post is full of guesswork and ramblings so go ahead and shoot it down.

I think we agree on that it is multipurpose we are discussing here. I just say Thrusting was more common than people think! Of cource warrior did slash! But they did not only do that, and a gladius and a spathae is ment to be thrusted into somebody else, but they still hur alot if you strike with it.