A sword for a tribune

[Dan Diffendale]

Yes Gaivs they are styled on Greek swords or may have been imported from Greece to the many Greek colonys in Italy

The sword with the elaborate chape comes from Tomb 69, Campovalano Necropolis, Abruzzo, and dates to the 7th or 6th century BCE. It's probably of local production, rather than a Greek import. There's a detail of the chape here. As a side note, the many Greek colonies in Italy did not rely on imports from Greece proper, but were in fact capable of their own production.

It always helps to put finds in their context.

The Warrior of Capestrano, for what it's worth, of course does not carry a line-drawing of a sword in his arms; you can what remains here. He's from 6th century BCE central Italy (Abruzzo), and definitely more illustrative of "native"/non-Greek types of armament, most clearly with his brimmed helmet and the disc cuirass. I'd be wary of using his fragmentary sword as a comparandum for Hellenistic Greek swords, and I *certainly* wouldn't call it a parazonium, or use it as a basis for one. I suppose one could argue that later Roman fancy swords were descendants of earlier proto-Praetuttian/pre-Samnite (or whatever you want to call them) fancy swords, but it seems tenuous at best.