The journey of the Roman gladius and other swords | Hacker News Reader

The journey of the Roman gladius and other swords

acoup.blog

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Slightly related, i can also highly recommend anyone interested in such topics to look at the roman javelin, the Pilum.

Its design is outright genius. The thin long tip would penetrate shields far enough to possibly injure the guy behind it but also get stuck in a way that made the shield unwieldy to the point of uselessness.

Visualization from the Smithsonian https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxY3CzN2Kkc

Coincidentally, acoup.blog recently also covered the pilum https://acoup.blog/2023/11/24/collections-roman-infantry-tac...

Impact also bent the tip enough to make it impractical to throw it back.

The acoup.blog article mentions that this was likely a side effect. And given how expensive they were to make, that makes sense to me. Especially if the theory about when in a fight they were used is correct.

Its length and the tip being wider then the rest was likely enough to prevent reuse

The interesting thing I learned about a year ago: "Pontius Pilate", the infamous New Testament governor who sentenced Jesus to death and inscribed his "INRI" plaque, has a name which is invariably presented untranslated.

So I could already tell what "Pontius" meant but I needed to look up the translation of "Pilate". It turns out that his name literally means "the Javelin-Armed Bridge". And that's a very interesting symbolism indeed, if you sort of mentally substitute that phrasing everywhere his name is mentioned.

Just a thought.

Wikipedia notes the following:

> His praenomen (first name) is unknown;[21] his cognomen Pilatus might mean "skilled with the javelin (pilum)", but it could also refer to the pileus or Phrygian cap, possibly indicating that one of Pilate's ancestors was a freedman.[22] If it means "skilled with the javelin", it is possible that Pilate won the cognomen for himself while serving in the Roman military;[20] it is also possible that his father acquired the cognomen through military skill.[23] In the Gospels of Mark and John, Pilate is only called by his cognomen, which Marie-Joseph Ollivier takes to mean that this was the name by which he was generally known in common speech.[24] The name Pontius suggests that an ancestor of his came from Samnium in central, southern Italy, and he may have belonged to the family of Gavius Pontius and Pontius Telesinus, two leaders of the Samnites in the third and first centuries BC, respectively, before their full incorporation to the Roman Republic.[25] Like all but one other governor of Judaea, Pilate was of the equestrian order, a middle rank of the Roman nobility.[26] As one of the attested Pontii, Pontius Aquila (an assassin of Julius Caesar) was a tribune of the plebs; the family must have originally been of plebeian origin and later became ennobled as equestrians.

I've never seen a video illustrate to me why the pilum was genius better than that. The guy even shows that, even if you did have a free hand, you're still pretty f'd. Also, to see the long tip bend to make it even harder never occurred to me. I've seen videos long ago on history channel illustrate fake ones they made that were much shorter and was baffled why I would drop my shield.

Thank you for posting that.

Thanks for the link. Amazing penetrative power. More importantly, I had no idea how difficult it would be to pull a pilum out.

>I had no idea how difficult it would be to pull a pilum out.

Its one of the important roles historically accurate reenactment plays in figuring this stuff out. The acoup article also mentions that you can hold a pilum in your shield hand with your thumb for a short time but it being really uncomfortable.

“Gladius” was also the common Roman slang word for “penis”, so much so that the accompanying Latin word for a sword holder or scabbard, “vagina”, became the standard English word for a body part, losing its original meaning.

As mentioned below, a different sword is called Kukris. In Norwegian and Swedish, we have the word "kuk" that is a slang for the similarly named English "cock"

Maybe there is a connection there as well?

Only if the root is the same in Nepalese.

As a man, I think about the Roman Empire at least once a week if not more.

I dont know if you are serious or not, but i am thinking about it more than i should. I keep dreaming of a united western world equal in scope and power. Right now it seems like the US is the only country that gets anywhere near the empire’s might but would be great to simply do what should be done and unite all aligned nations in a way that also respects diversity among cultures and ways of doing things. Free europe is already dependant on the US for security and the natural path is to get even closer.

The blog author actually has an article somewhat related to your thoughts - https://acoup.blog/2023/07/07/collections-the-status-quo-coa...

I’ll have to reread it but this conclusion:

“As a result, I don’t think the coalition is likely to go away.”

Makes me particularly happy. There are a few things I dont like about the us and the west in general - one being an excessive reliance on corporations and a diminishing small business culture, one that risks damaging the very freedoms we enjoy - but otherwise I think we are pretty much doing the right thing. A bit more alignment wouldnt hurt either. The benefits pax americana have brought are simply incredibly beneficial to the free world - without the us there wouldnt be much free world to talk about anyway.

I think it’s in the interest of all free countries to protect america in return as that project is by far the greatest achievement so far in terms of nation building. More unity means we will also be able to start looking beyond our planet as that will require the force that only we as one can provide.

"The Pax Romana (Latin for 'Roman peace') is a roughly 200-year-long timespan of Roman history which is identified as a golden age of increased and sustained Roman imperialism, relative peace and order, prosperous stability, hegemonial power, and regional expansion."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Romana

"Pax Americana is a term applied to the concept of relative peace in the Western Hemisphere and later in the world after the end of World War II in 1945, when the United States became the world's dominant economic, cultural, and military power."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana

The US global leadership role was severely tarnished after its catastrophic war on Vietnam. And just when it seemed the country might recover its leadership role, it launched an even more catastrophic war on Iraq.

The consequences of the Iraq quagmire on US domestic politics, economic and military strength, global flows of migrants and global reputation continue to reverberate.

If this is the end of Pax Americana, it's anyone's guess what comes next.

Men who think about the Roman Empire at least once a week are fond of drawing parallels with what happened after the end of Pax Romana and what might be next for a leaderless world.

Western Europe, EU/NATO countries, have the wealth and technology to lead the World without USA help.

Western europe and the eu on their own are precisely irrelevant.

The wealth and the technology, perhaps. The political will and unity? I doubt it. EU is still in a pre-Federation stage, similar to the USA during the Articles of Confederation. (Also, NATO does include the US.)

EU will remain in "pre-Federation" stage for centuries, since, unlike USA it is composed of many nations, with language barriers, and historical grudges against each other. It might become temporarily united by force (that's what EU Commission, and Germany are trying to do right now), but that won't last even a decade.

While they lacked language barriers, the differences in who founded the original colonies led to large cultural differences that could be considered nation defining. This was amplified by available resources and extraction strategies and eventually contributed to the civil war.

The differences within the EU are certainly much broader, but power draws power, and I wouldn't count out a much more centralized EU in the future, even if that is not beneficial for or desired by any of its members.

Last century was defined by east europe and the us. I fail to see how western europe, which collapsed at its first war with a significant power, could amount to anything on its own. Germany alone erased most countries in a matter of years and after that germany itself was split between america and britain on one side and east europe on the other. Western europe can win wars against peaceful or backwards countries, not against serious military powers. Even the war in ukraine shows that continental western europe has significant gaps in terms of defense technology. It can print money but it surely cant extract the wealth that matters - resources and energy. Where are holland or germany going to get the oil and metal needed to build tanks in case of war at their borders? There’s no amount of arrogance and self flattery to compensate, and money burn faster than bullets.

Of course I am serious. How can you not be fascinated by the Roman Empire from the tiny village origins to the eventual collapse. There’s so much history and innovation that no other culture was able to offer.

As a Brett Deveraux subscriber, for me it depends on how often he posts updates. What with the ongoing book project and job hunt, I don't begrudge him if it's sometimes more than a week between posts, because when they do come out they're really high quality.

Some weeks I'm too busy thinking about the Roman Republic.

Interesting to note that the old Nepalese word for the Kukri is Kepis.

Why's that?

Because it quite resembles the khopesh, from ancient Egypt. And the word is nearly the same too.

"a clear case of the La Tène style of sword crossing cultural boundaries – Romans are not Gauls – a thing that it turns out this sword-type will be very good at."

Yeah, no kidding ...

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