The Abandonment of the Gladius for the Spatha - Why?

[Tarbicus]

Tarbicus,

I too quite like Danno's interpretation as a possibility, but I'm a bit confused as to where you stand on this issue. What period do you think the shorter Gladius belongs to as an effective and commonly used Infantry weapon?

I can't really answer that without going into greater and boring specualtion and detail. Apologies to all in advance, and this is not a thesis, more of a "write the thoughts down while you've got time and come back to it later".

The gladius hispaniensis was adopted by the legionaries after their experience fighting against them. At this time they were much longer than the classic gladius (which is often quoted as being smaller than modern reproductions). In fact they were up to twice as long as the classic Pompeii type. Before this time the Romans had adopted the Samnite scutum, manipular tactics, pilum (hasta velitaris) and other equipment (Sekunda quoting Atheneaeus; and the Certosa Situla). When Scipio Africanus captured Cartagena in 209 BCE he also captured a number of Spanish swordsmiths, who he forced to teach Roman smiths on how to make the gladius hispaniensis.

It is here that we see a definitive desire by the Romans to use the Spanish sword, and its introduction en masse into the legions. Compared to some swords that have been described, Philon's description sums it up; whereby the gladius could be placed horizontally on top of the head sideways, and the blade bent down on either side until it touched the shoulders and released, the blade springing back into shape with no sign of ever bending. Any amount of repeating this wouldn't bend the blade out of shape. Who wouldn't want one? However, there wasn't really a need to shorten the length of the gladius at this time, as the Romans fought in open order with a two metre frontage per man. By 200 BCE the gladius is the standard sword for the legions. As a note, it seems the falcata is more useful for more agile fighting without a shield, which is not useful for the legions. Livy described the demoralising effect it had on the Macedonians after they saw how effective it had been against their comrades. The gladius seems to have been very effective against the Macedonian phalanx, just as the Biscayan sword and buckler saw to the Swiss pikemen of Louis XII (Sekunda again).

So, how come it became shorter?
Here's the most speculative of the lot as part of that answer, and a lot of people ain't gonna like this: Sheer brutal vioence. The average Roman soldier loved close combat, and the closer and more brutal the better. Violence was a Roman institution, and the closer a Roman soldier got to his enemy the more effective he became once the pila had been thrown. Gory, psychotic, bloodchurning, gut-spilling violence.
The second part of the answer could be to do with what follows below, and explains the gladius' ever more gradual reduction in size: Siege warfare and the penetration of the enemy in cramped order (not even close order) while pouring over battlements, through breaches in walls - urban combat.

I think the shortest gladii were being used during the 2ndC CE. One is quoted as being 35 cm in length. Around this time I understand that we begin to see a serious decline in citizen soldiers and more non-citizens joining up, to the point where the situation grew so bad that a need was felt for an "upgrade" of all freedmen, making them e citizens in the earlier part of the 4th C CE. A good reason for the lack of citizens in the military may well be that they were ever more tied to rich landowners who forbade them from joining the army lest they lose labourers.

By this time the auxilia had already become the main fighting force, with the legionaries mainly involved with engineering and siegeworks (as said above). However, with the depletion of citizen conscripts into the legions they were becoming smaller and harder to replace, hence the drastic decision which enabled fresh blood to be introduced into the legions and bring them up to strength.

Along with this influx of fresh blood into the legions, one of the oldest and strongest traditional establishments of Rome, also came changes. No doubt attempts were made to force them into training as the normal citizen would be, but there was a difference to the "new legionaries". Many of them came from cultures with strong traditions in horsemanship (never a Roman forte), and also of using a longer sword. As time went by their influence grew and grew, with many becoming centurions and officers of higher rank. It is not unfeasible that they saw advantages in the use of the native weaponry, coupled with their past links to them, and also lacked the prejudices of the average past Roman citizen, who saw the spatha type only useful for cavalry and auxilia. Hence the gladius became longer, but not overnight. If also they retained many features of auxilliary tactics, fighting in looser and more open order, the need for a short gladius diminishes, and the longer spatha type makes more sense, and we see a return to the original gladius hispaniensis lengths which I think is mentioned earlier in the thread.

Is it small wonder that the shape of the more common scutum used by later Roman legions is also oval or round, and that segmentata gradually fell out of use, superceded by hamata, squamata and plumata? Also the neckguards on helmets reduced in size (see Lendon's theory, that the larger neckguard is more ideal for deflecting missiles from above in siegework construction) and the spangenhelm, a "barbarian" design, became more dominant. I believe that what we see in the later Roman legionary is a more advanced version of an earlier auxilliary.

I may not have supported the whole Connolly height theory, but it was fun to do, and no doubt I'm about to be shot down in flames and crash and burn completely. But what the hell.