Gladiator Sica

[Slepcevic]

Greetings friends... i wanna share some pic of my latest work. I always wanna to have a gladiator sica and now finally i made one . I don know how much is historically accurate, i find some similar blades in "Osprey - Gladiators 100bc-Ad200" but still im not convinced. I look at a historical findings (mosaics and images ) and im still confused because there is a many variants of this weapon .... can someone tell is my work accurate enough ??? thanks in advance !

[richard robinson]

i think congratulations are in order,
you have made a beautiful sica
and you are correct, they vary enormously.
if you are going for 100 per cent authenticity- look i suggest you file that bolt at the end so it looks less boltish.

regards
richard

[Medusa Gladiatrix]

This curved version reminds me of the find of the wooden sica at Oberaden which is on display now at the museum in Haltern. Anyhow, I don't know how long this curved version was used, later sometime in the first century it became the angled version.

For my taste I would shorten the straight part and starting with the curve earlier. It was definitely not longer as a gladius. But this is just a proposal, I don't have any actual data how long etc.

[Slepcevic]

Thank you very much for compliments and advice, It really mean a lot. I hope that the next piece of equipment will be much better


I saw that sica, it was found in a military camp? I still do not understand why they had replica of the sica in the army ????

[john m roberts]

Nemanja,
First off, it's not entirely certain that the wooden "sica" found at Oberaden was a gladiatorial practice weapon. It may be a gladius prop which has warped over the centuries. That said, some legions had their own gladiatorial troupes so it is not remarkable to find gladiator gear in a military setting.

[ParthianBow]

Nice weapon, Nemanja - congratulations!

Svenja, are there any pictures or more details of the sica at Oberaden? Are there other sica(e) that have survived? I've looked around a bit, and not had much luck.

[Medusa Gladiatrix]

Here's a pic of the Oberraden sica which I took when I was at Haltern in February this year. Junkelmann states total length 46.5 cm, length of blade 30.5 cm. He also states that approx. 1 cm (which is actually not that much) of the tip is missing.

[attachment=4828]12022012213.jpg[/attachment]

So far as I know this is the only one they found, except for the pugiones from Pompeii no gladiatorial weapons have been found. Junkelmann states in his 2008 issue of his "gladiator bible" a weird weapon, quite longish and fine found at Augst, Switzerland with an overall length of 74.5 cm.