myArmoury.com - What makes a sword a spatha?

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Posts: 99 Location: WA, USA

Thu 29 Aug, 2013 4:03 pm

Alex Cerioli wrote:

Then you're telling me that the sword used by these guys:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons..._01%29.jpg

Is the same sword used by those other guys:

http://www.roma-victrix.com/armamentarium/img...ata01b.jpg

And a Roman soldier of the 2nd century would have used the same word to indicate these two weapons? And that a certain time the Romans for no reason whatsoever started to call the gladii spathae?

No, Dan stated that the words do not have a different meaning. E.g. automobile and car can be used interchangeably (you sound pretty old fashioned if you say automobile). I cannot speculate on why the terminology changed but I also cannot assume a change in terminology indicates a change in meaning.

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Alex Cerioli

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Posts: 24 Location: Italia

Thu 29 Aug, 2013 4:51 pm

I repeat, this is a scutum:

[ Linked Image ]

This is a parma:

[ Linked Image ]

Both shields were available at the same time, both words were recorded at the same time and there were NOT used as synonymous. Now, why should it be different for spatha and glaudius? Before the longsword had apperead, the word spatha was NOT used....then they started to use it and the word "gladius" didn't disappear...now I don't have the complete Latin literature at hand,and to be honest I don't want to spend the night for such a discussion, I just say that it's unlikely that such a methodical organisation as the Roman army used the same word for different weapons and armours just on the basis:" it's not clearly written by any classic sources".

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Dan Howard

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Posts: 3,636 Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia

Thu 29 Aug, 2013 6:07 pm

Alex Cerioli wrote:

Regarding the "hamata", Varro wrote something about it:

"Lorica, quod e loris de corio crudo pectoralia faciebant; postea subcidit gallica e ferro sub id vocabulum, ex anulis ferrea tunica"

Prabably the original term was "ferrea tunica", but the musculata wasn't (usually) made of iron, so I doubt they would have called it (or the segmentata) something like "ex anulis ferra tunica". Nevertheless these armours existed in Roman times, and it would have been foolish to think that they were using the same word for all of them, the Romans knew perfectly the difference between the hasta and the pilum, or the parma and the scutum, why should it be different for swords?

This perfectly demonstrates my point. Where is it called a hamata? There is no attempt to invent a term for it at all. It is just an "iron tunic" which could be interpreted as mail, or scale, or a plate cuirass - either the musculata typology such as the one found at Prodromi or the tube-and-yoke type found at Vergina.

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Dan Howard

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Posts: 3,636 Location: Maitland, NSW, Australia

Thu 29 Aug, 2013 6:13 pm

Alex Cerioli wrote:

This is a parma:

[ Linked Image ]

This is what WE call a parma. We have no idea what the Romans called it. They called some kind of shield a parma but how do you know it was this type?

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Matthew Amt

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Posts: 1,456 Location: Laurel, MD, USA

Fri 30 Aug, 2013 6:19 am

Alex Cerioli wrote:

...Both shields were available at the same time, both words were recorded at the same time and there were NOT used as synonymous. Now, why should it be different for spatha and glaudius? Before the longsword had apperead, the word spatha was NOT used....then they started to use it and the word "gladius" didn't disappear...now I don't have the complete Latin literature at hand,and to be honest I don't want to spend the night for such a discussion, I just say that it's unlikely that such a methodical organisation as the Roman army used the same word for different weapons and armours just on the basis:" it's not clearly written by any classic sources".

So, you're telling me that modern Americans do NOT use the word "sword" to apply a saber, a gladius, a zweihander, an Oakeshotte Type X, a cutlass, a falcata, a xiphos, and a Naue II? Cuz we do... "Sword" means "sword" without getting really specific, and so did "gladius"--why should that be a problem? "Vir" meant "man" without getting into any distinctions of size, shape, social class, or profession.

Dan isn't saying that the Romans did not have any words which were specific, in fact from what I've seen "parma" does *tend* to be applied to round shields. But I wouldn't swear that "scutum" meant only oblong shields--it might have been just "shield" in general, just like our word "shield".

Also, don't get too hung up on the idea of the Roman army being strictly methodical! The deeper we look, the more things we find that strike us as illogical or archaic. As I always say, these are guys who insist on putting *hinges* on leather belts...

Matthew

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Till J. Lodemann

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Posts: 97

Fri 30 Aug, 2013 6:47 am

To my mind, spatha is just a word for sword, as gladius is.
An etymologic aspect of the word spatha which I vaguely remember, is that it shares a common indogermanic root with the english word spade. The indogermanic root implies something flat and broad. But I don't recall the source now so...

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