10-19-2005, 01:14 AM
Sorry for not contributing to this until now. I have only just had an opportunity to read it.
If the suriving sample of known Roman daggers is anything to go by, by Domitian's time the vast majority of military daggers had type II (rod) rather than type I (frame) tangs. These were not rivetted to the handles and seem to have become detatched quite frequently. I know of two daggers with this type of tang which had been fitted with hastily made replacement handles. If Domitian's dagger was of a standard military type it might have been relatively easy for Parthenius to remove the handle from the dagger. If he had been well prepared (which I am sure he was) he could easily (and seemingly innocently) have brought a stylus, large headed pin, spoon or anything else similar with him and inserted the pointed end into the aperture in the handle and the other end into the sheath, thus allowing the handle to remain tenuously attached to the sheath.
I am not saying that this is the ultimate solution to the problem but I think it it certainly a possibility, given the surviving artifacts (and assuming that Suetonius, who could easily have been read by Dio Cassius a century later, did not make the story up for effect).
Crispvs
If the suriving sample of known Roman daggers is anything to go by, by Domitian's time the vast majority of military daggers had type II (rod) rather than type I (frame) tangs. These were not rivetted to the handles and seem to have become detatched quite frequently. I know of two daggers with this type of tang which had been fitted with hastily made replacement handles. If Domitian's dagger was of a standard military type it might have been relatively easy for Parthenius to remove the handle from the dagger. If he had been well prepared (which I am sure he was) he could easily (and seemingly innocently) have brought a stylus, large headed pin, spoon or anything else similar with him and inserted the pointed end into the aperture in the handle and the other end into the sheath, thus allowing the handle to remain tenuously attached to the sheath.
I am not saying that this is the ultimate solution to the problem but I think it it certainly a possibility, given the surviving artifacts (and assuming that Suetonius, who could easily have been read by Dio Cassius a century later, did not make the story up for effect).
Crispvs
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