Any armourers?

[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