I realized something a couple posts back, a trick of perspective. *I* see Roman swords (and Greek) as thin and light and fast, because I've been doing a lot more research especially on Greek swords, and finding that the vast majority of our modern reproductions are massive and wide and thick and clunky by comparison. I also seem them as very tough and functional, with breakage or significant bending due to battle use being pretty uncommon.

Of course, to someone used to the highly flexible blades of fine steel from the later middle ages and Renaissance, sure, Roman blades are gonna look like choppers made by orcs! So I'm learning to be a little more careful in making or reading such comparisons.

On butted mail: IF you can find ancient European mail (Roman, Celtic, Iberian, Hellenistic, etc.) that has been proven by microanalysis/X-rays/etc. to be made with butted rings (not just repairs, bits of jewelry, or brass trim bits), lots of folks will love to see it. I have heard that the Kirkburn shirt is made with butted rings, but I'm not sure that was actually confirmed by scientific tests. There are LOTS of bits of Roman mail that survive, and so far they have all turned out to be riveted. When mail first appeared, it was used only by the wealthy (of course!), so there was no point in trying to make it faster or more cheaply, especially when such shortcuts would drastically reduce its effectiveness. Plus those cultures relied heavily on slave labor, so the only cost was the metal. Speed of production was almost never a factor, since most troops fought unarmored. If you REALLY needed something that was cheaper and faster than riveted mail, scale armor was well known. Leather armor (*not* boiled, from what we can tell) and quilted linen were also known, but I find it interesting that depictions of these, and finds of the metal fittings from them, all seem to predate the invention of mail.

None of this *proves* the non-existence of butted mail, obviously, I'm simply presenting counters to the arguments presented here. Things that seem logical to us may not have been logical to the ancients.

And I'm dragging things off-topic, sorry!

Matthew

Great stuff, Mr. Hardy, thank you! My knowledge runs mostly to the earlier eras, but I do remember from my Revolutionary War reenacting days that the British infantry hangers were not very long. I could never get our officers to let us carry big shields, though...

Matthew

y'all are concentrating too much on the equipment and not enough on the men.

early legions were citizen soldiers fighting for their country. the 6000 man late republican/early imperial legion was the culmination. the legion fought in tight formations and the object was to funnel the barbarians and their long swords tighter and tighter till they didn't have enough room to swing them. the romans then just kept advancing and thrusting, not at the guy in front, but the guy to your right - his sword side uncovered unlike his shield front/left side. a small number of legionnaires could, like in boudicca's last battle, defeat many times their number. in that battle the disciplined romans presented a saw toothed front made of many wedges, that bunched up the bigger stronger and longsword wielding brits into the buzz saw. the long sword needed room to swing it. and a trained warrior to use it effectively. there is a difference between a warrior and a soldier. warriors win duels for glory, soldiers win battles. warriors look out for themselves. soldiers look out for each other.

later legions got smaller, used non-citizen auxillaries, and started hiring barbarians as there became fewer citizens willing to enlist. in the late empire, a legion could be 600 men. all barbarians, with their round shields and long swords, axes and spears. they did not have the training or motivation the earlier legions did. they became warriors again. the horseman of the eastern empire, cataphracti, became the knights, and the infantry became less and less important, until hastings started the final defeat of the shield wall and rise of the cavalry in the west.

the above is of course a too short generalization. it would take a much longer dissertation to flesh it out.

I respectfully disagree with presenting shorter swords for infantry and longer ones for cavalry as some sort of universal. Even to the extant that it's accurate, it still doesn't speak to the length difference between, say, imperial Roman infantry swords and mid-sixteenth-century Italian infantry swords. As example of how infantry and cavalry sword lengths didn't necessarily differ, Sir John Smythe in his 1594 military manual recommended swords with blades no longer than a yard for both infantry and cavalry. Humphrey Barwick, who fiercely opposed Smythe on many points, also wanted yard-long blades for infantry. Various Italian military writers of this period wanted 36+ inches of blade for infantry. A decade or two later, Joseph Swetnam even thought the long (4ft!) rapier could serve well in war. In short, a number of sixteenth century military authors wanted infantry swords to have blades much longer than ancient sword blades and in some cases to go basically as long as single-handed sword blades got. In at least one case - Smythe - we have an explicit recommendation of cavalry swords no longer than infantry swords. And when you've got infantry with yard-plus-long blades, it's unlikely for cavalry swords to be much if any longer.

And then there's matter of infantry using what we'd call longswords, swords with grips long enough for two hands. Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century artwork often shows Swiss pikers wearing longswords on their sides. This differs notably from Landsknecht armament in the same period (though the German pikers also wore longswords at times), later and contemporary Spanish/English/Italian practice, and ancient Roman practice.

Regarding the use of long swords by cavalry, it isn't always the case. Qing cavalry swords tend to be on the short side (I have one, 71cm/28" of blade, and there were shorter ones). They were side-arms; the main cavalry weapons were bow and spear. using the bow means much less need to resort to the sword, compared to using the pistol.