Spatha - Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The spatha was introduced to the Roman army in the early imperial period by Celtic cavalry auxiliaries who continued to wear their Celtic long swords, with blade lengths of 60 to 85 cm, in Roman service. The earlier gladius sword was gradually replaced by the spatha from the late second to the third century AD. From the early 3rd century AD, legionaries and cavalrymen began to wear their swords on the left side, perhaps because the scutum had been abandoned and the spatha had replaced the gladius.

Employed by both Roman cavalrymen and their German enemies, later Lombard spathae were actually more advanced than the wrought iron gladii, being constructed using a form of pattern welding employing layers of iron and steel; in effect, a composite material. Eventually under the later Roman Empire the spatha was adopted by many if not all legionaries.

In the imperial period, the Romans adopted the original Greek term, spathe (σπάθη), as spatha, which still carried the general meaning of any object considered long and flat. Spatha appears first in Pliny and then Seneca with different meanings: a spatula, a metal-working implement, a palm-leaf and so on. There is no hint of any native Roman sword called a spatha.

Referring to an actual sword, the term first appears in the pages of Tacitus with reference to an incident of the early empire. The British king Caractacus, having rebelled, found himself trapped on a rocky hill, so that if he turned one way he encountered the gladii of the legionaries, and if the other, the spathae of the auxiliaries. Left with no other way to turn, he escaped to the Brigantes, leaving his brothers to surrender the men. He was turned over to the Romans by the queen of the Brigantes, who was pardoned by the Senate after a moving plea for mercy, and reigned successfully once more as a Roman client king. Tacitus does not relate who the auxiliaries were. The Romans moved auxiliaries around the frontiers and also relied on local levies. Most examples of spathae come from Germany and east Europe, however. There is an excellent chance that the owners of the spathae were Germanic. There is no indication in Tacitus either that they were cavalry; overall, the Romans used both cavalry and infantry.

When the spathae next appeared, after a mysterious lacuna of about two centuries, they became the standard weapon of heavy infantry. The Romans could have borrowed this weapon from the auxiliaries, probably Germanic mercenaries, but the name does not support this origin. Spatha was certainly not a Germanic name, nor is there any indication anywhere what its Germanic name was. There are a plenitude of Germanic names, such as Old English sweord, bill, and so on, but no evidence to tie any name to the spatha, which was never used in Germanic languages as the name of a sword.