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The inventiveness of the Celts
#16
Quote:Also more is being discovered all the time about the Celts. Apparently they had advanced metal making skills, greater than the Romans who copied some things, like chain mail. I also have a theory about the gladius and the Celtic swords. I feel the Romans just didn`t have (or copy) Celtic skills for making a longer sword. Romans perhaps only could smelt a sword that was short and fatter because of this. A superior blade can be longer and narrower which requires advanced smelting. Either the Romans never copied whatever reason, stubbornness for sentimental reasons to stick with the gladius perhaps or the Celts were able to keep their secrets.
There's a very specific reference in a primary source to Scipio capturing Celt-Iberian swordsmiths after the siege of Carthage (? IIRC), and forcing them to teach his own how to make the Spanish steel swords / Gladius Hispaniensis which had been impressing the Romans so much during the Punic Wars. Given that so much had been adopted from the Celts, I personally think that the incredibly high quality Spanish steel sword was peculiar to that region and a closely kept secret. There are just too many references to other Celtic swords bending in battle, the Celts having to find space and possibly a rock to bend it back into shape again.
TARBICvS/Jim Bowers
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#17
Quote:Their metallurgy was truly something.
There is a problem with Celtic metallurgy, I mean this from pre-Roman in Gaul for instance. All archaeological evidence is presumably connected with Early Roman Period than we don`t know, if these amazing centers of the iron metallurgy all over the Gaul have "Celtic roots" or not. Invention of a single and simple slag-pit furnace is known from sites of Germanic tribes and the fact is that "Celtic metallurgy" has become the scientific legend, though scholars think that if we have as many evidences of Celtic smith-work (helmets, swords or even extremal quantities of nails from muri gallici) it is simultaneously an evidence of their metallurgical skills, but unfortunately it is not. On the other hand it is really strange, what was the source of the iron for these numerous examples of Celtic iron weapon.
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#18
Quote:Given that so much had been adopted from the Celts, I personally think that the incredibly high quality Spanish steel sword was peculiar to that region and a closely kept secret. There are just too many references to other Celtic swords bending in battle, the Celts having to find space and possibly a rock to bend it back into shape again.
As Jim noticed we have such an evidence from Caesar Smile but the fact is that locality of Early Roman smithing workshops in ex Regnum Noricum for instance was not accidental. Some types of Early Roman swords as Wesolki type or Bell-Zemplin type have Celtic origin and they are long (ca 90 cm). Presumably they were adopted by Roman cavalry. Probably a skill of hardening blades using water or oil or .... mud was invented by Celts, but they were working in Roman workshops yet. Some scholars think that they even invented pattern welding, but it is another "scientific legend" as I suppose.
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#19
Quote:Also more is being discovered all the time about the Celts. Apparently they had advanced metal making skills, greater than the Romans who copied some things, like chain mail. I also have a theory about the gladius and the Celtic swords. I feel the Romans just didn`t have (or copy) Celtic skills for making a longer sword. Romans perhaps only could smelt a sword that was short and fatter because of this. A superior blade can be longer and narrower which requires advanced smelting. Either the Romans never copied whatever reason, stubbornness for sentimental reasons to stick with the gladius perhaps or the Celts were able to keep their secrets.

What about the spatha, a long Roman sword? The Romans made and used long swords, they just didn't issue them to the infantry, not because they couldn't, but because the weapon didn't 'suit' the current Roman infantry tactics.
Caius Fabius Maior
Charles Foxtrot
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#20
Quote:What about the spatha, a long Roman sword? The Romans made and used long swords, they just didn't issue them to the infantry, not because they couldn't, but because the weapon didn't 'suit' the current Roman infantry tactics.

The auxilia did use the spatha during the Republic, didn't they?
Robert Vermaat
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#21
Caius Fabius wrote:
Quote:What about the spatha, a long Roman sword? The Romans made and used long swords, they just didn't issue them to the infantry, not because they couldn't, but because the weapon didn't 'suit' the current Roman infantry tactics.
Vortigern Studies wrote:
Quote:The auxilia did use the spatha during the Republic, didn't they?

As I was learnt auxiliares using long swords could be recruited from Celtic tribes. Couldn`t they Smile ?:

Tactic of Roman legionary infantry as Caius said needed short sword to enable fithing in crowded lines, but auxiliares used another tactic - sometimes borrowed from native tribes as I remember from Annales of Tacitus when he describes quests of Germanic for instance.
I wrote above about swords called Wesolki type. A sword found on this cemetery of the Przeworsk culture comes from the beginning of the 1st century and its longitude is ca 90 cm (with tang). It has narrow blade and it could be treated as a Celtic one but it has an armourer`s stamp: ALIUS PA. It is possible that such kind of swords were used by ALII, but of course it is more sophisticated than evidenced Smile [/b]
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#22
Varistus wrote:
Quote:I feel the Romans just didn`t have (or copy) Celtic skills for making a longer sword. Romans perhaps only could smelt a sword that was short and fatter because of this. A superior blade can be longer and narrower which requires advanced smelting. Either the Romans never copied whatever reason, stubbornness for sentimental reasons to stick with the gladius perhaps or the Celts were able to keep their secrets.
Jim has took very good reply, but I wanted only to pay attention on "smelting" process. In Etruria was located one of the oldest center of Iron metallurgy. Smelting iron is of course not the same as smithing but there was certainly no problem for Romans to prepare longer sword than gladius. But they simply didn`t need it for legionaries on the contrary to the weaponry for auxiliares Smile as I suppose.
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#23
Someone, somewhere, mentioned that the Spanish sword was made from iron ore that had been left in the ground for a long period of time, and when retrieved only the good quality ore was left, and this is what was used to make the blades from.
TARBICvS/Jim Bowers
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#24
Hi Jim Smile
I know only from Plinius the Elder that some iron mines were regenerated when they had been abandoned for some time Smile
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#25
Quality of the iron ore is the problem because in antiquity process of immediate reduction was used and it needs not very good quality of the ore to obtain good quality of the iron.
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#26
Quote:Hi Jim Smile
I know only from Plinius the Elder that some iron mines were regenerated when they had been abandoned for some time Smile

Diodorus, book V chapter 2:

Quote:They make weapons and javelins in an admirable manner; for they bury plates of iron under ground until the rust consumes the weaker part, and so the rest becomes more strong and firm. Of this they make their swords and other warlike weapons; and with these arms, thus tempered, they so cut through every thing in their way that neither shield, helmet, nor bone can withstand them.
Ruben

He had with him the selfsame rifle you see with him now, all mounted in german silver and the name that he\'d give it set with silver wire under the checkpiece in latin: Et In Arcadia Ego. Common enough for a man to name his gun. His is the first and only ever I seen with an inscription from the classics. - Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
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#27
Good quote Ruben, a laudes for you!
Robert Vermaat
MODERATOR
FECTIO Late Romans
THE CAUSE OF WAR MUST BE JUST
(Maurikios-Strategikon, book VIII.2: Maxim 12)
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#28
Yes, very good quotation Smile
Laudes
But Diodorus did not mean iron ore but iron oxidants from existing items... and that is the difference. Technically described by Diodorus process is reasonable because rust attacks "weaker" - less carbonated part of the item and secondary carbonation of such sword by smithing makes it harder
Best
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ANDREAS GOBINIUS


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