[Hugh Fuller]

I would not say that the trilobate pommels on those swords were necessarily carryovers from their Celtic days. There is a tombstone of a Roman centurion from around 80 BCE that was found in Padova, Italy. The man's name was Minucius and he is shown holding onto his Gladius Hispaniensis which very clearly has a trilobate pommel. After much speculation as to the meaning of this back in 2001-2002 when I was using it as a pattern for a gladius being made by Eric Stevenson, we concluded that the pommel was a form of the "fica", a representation of the female genitalia. Today, this is a very dirty gesture in Mediterranean countries, but back in Roman times, it was like the winged phallus, a sign of good fortune. In the case of old Minucius, we concluded that he was carrying the equivalent of a St. Christopher's medal or a rabbit's foot into combat with him by having one on the pommel of his sword.

To see a sketch of the Minucius tombstone, look in Bishop & Coulston's Roman Military Equipment From the Punic Wars to the Fall of the Empire.

[Felix Kunze]

Hello Hugh,
do You have some more information for the interesting ´ficus` interpretation? The phallic amulets are well known to me, especially in the context of the roman military, but I didn´t here about the ficus-interpretation yet. Could You post an image of the Minucius tombstone?

To the interpretation of the trilobate pommel from Arlon: Since Arlon is in nowadays Luxemburg, th celtic interpretation is close at hand, since the celtic tribes from this area are known to have served as auxilaries in the roman army and still displayed some of their native dress (also visible in the gravefinds from this region and time). And don´t You think it is possible, that a gladius could also display such an influence, since its design was inspired by a celtiberian weapon (gladius hispaniensis!)? But of course I am also aware that the romans didn´t import these swords from their neighbours, they just imported the idea and modified it to their use. So the spatha was not an exact copy of the late Latène-swords, they were a new and slightly smaller reinvention with a blade length of 60-70 cm and a blade width of around 3,5 cm (1./2. century AD), primarily intended for thrusting, but also suited for delivering blows, for example at a fleeing enemy. In the later second century they started to become more wide and some are getting fullers, thus becoming more suited for slashing.

[Hugh Fuller]

Felix, Michael Bishop sent me a photo of that tombstone, but I am not abke to retrieve it any longer, unfortunately. There have been too many technical changes in the various systems that I was using then and am using now for me to surmount, including having the email system that I had used blocked on the computer system from which I post. I am sorry.

I have no idea if the Bishop/Coulston book is available in German, but your command of English seems excellent and you surely could find a copy in that language. It is indispensible to anyone studying Roman military equipments.

As to the "ficus," it was a conclusion that we drew after much consideration. It seemed like the only reasonable explanation as the adoption of the Gladius Hispaniensis was back in the later 3rd Century BCE, during the 2nd Punic War, and Minucius' tomstone has been dated to ca. 80 BCE, or about the time of Sulla's dictatorship. We are talking a gap of almost 150 years, so I would suspect that the Roman versions of the swords were, by that time, very Roman and not Celt-Iberian. But I may be wrong and we may have been way off-base in our thinking. After all, this pommel is the only example of a trilobate Roman pommel that we had seen at the time, Fall of 2001. If you search the SwordForum Archives, you might be able to pull up the discussions, but SFI has redone their system at least once since then and I have no idea if those old archives are still available.

[Hugh Fuller]

[Felix Kunze]

Hugh,
thanks for Your book tip and the interesting piece on hr-replikate. Also I visited the site several times (I even got a shieldboss from it), this object didn´t catch my eye before. Quite interesting and a good hint to the ficus theory. When the ficus theory was first mentined, I remembered a discussion concerning the so called "girl of Windeby" that was said to make such a gesture as a sign of sexual crime. But as it turned out, the `girl` is actually a boy and the gesture was added later by the finder. In conjunction to this it was stated, that this gesture wasn´t used before the middle ages, so this object clarifies things.

I also found the Bishop and Coulston book in the library of the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn (I just live nearby) and found the sketch of the tombstone. As mentioned before under this topic, the Vonatorix-tombstone besides some other quite similar tombstones is also on display here, so I can post some photos on request. I also found the original piece of one of the spatha replicas posted earlier in this thread, the ivory-hilt spatha from Cologne, dating to the second half of the third century. Displayed together with it are two more spathae from later periods (fourth and fifth century) so the later evolution of the roman spatha into the germanic longsword (still called spatha, at least in Germany) can be followed. Another intersting piece in the museum is a roman ring-pommel sword from the third century AD, that shows once more the sarmatian influence on the roman military after they clashed in several wars like Traians Dacian campaigns.

[Hugh Fuller]

Felix, thank you so much for those excellent pictures. If you want to drool over an absolutely gorgeous currently made version o Roman Ring Hilt Sword, take a look at No. 116 on Patrick Barta's page.
http://www.templ.net/english/weapons-antiquit...le_age.php
I have had his No. 102 Roman Riding Sword since March of 2002 and I have his No. 118 Abingdon Sword on order. I am now about 8 months into the 2 1/2 year wait for it. But that Roman Ring Sword is truly stunning and would have been my choice if I did living history in that era.

I describe Patrick's work as "currently made version" because he makes them in the exact way that they smiths made them back at the time in which they were originally made. He starts with iron ore and charcoal and makes a pattern-welded blade from there.