Why did Romans and Greeks made such short swords?

Romans fought with spear and small sword -or spanish sword- and shield.

Think wall of shields marching, then jabalins were throw, and then at mellee they push the enemy with their shield then stab them with the short sword from the side. Repeat until battlefield is full of bodies.

you cant swing a longsword effectively during the shield press in battle

even the Zulu's knew this which is why they adopted a wicked short stabbing spear

Tight heavy infantry formations

>You can't make a bronze "long sword"
China seemed to pull it off.

So did the Celts.

>Though the Celts did have short swords for formation fighting. They *did* invent the Gladius after all.

wasn't it an Iberian thing first and foremost?

China had blast furnaces in fucking BC

Gosh, China is so damn awesome.

Your average jian is 70 cm long, (or about 28 inches), that's not that much longer than a xiphos (average 60 cm), or gladius (60-65cm). And they're a hell of a lot shorter than something like most high medieval arming swords (91.4 cm) let alone a real two handed longsword (about 110 cm length)

wiktenauer.com/wiki/Category:Arming_Sword

hroarr.com/how-long-should-a-longsword-be/

tl;dr: a jian is pretty short.

Actually half right. The Romans switched to the Spatha pretty much as soon as technology to make them strong and resilient existed. Turns out a few extra inches doesn't really make it hard to thrust.

Gladius came from the Celtic word "Kladdibos." It simply means "sword." in the Celt language. Along with the chainmail, the lozenge shaped scutum, the Coolus helmet, and the idea of heavy infantrymen hurling spears, the Celtic short sword is one of the things thr Romans got from the Celts.

The Iberian bit is when the Romans adopted the Gladius Hispaniensis, which had a longer blade and a tapered bit in the middle. Even then the Celts are involved in it because the Iberian sword was from the shit carried by the Celtiberi.

Iberians were celts

inferior metal-working skills. a longsword has to be made of stronger stuff than bronze.

plus if you want a long stabby weapon, it's easier to just make a spear.

they used smaller shields with the spatha though, it would be unwieldy with an earlier era scutum

But user, the Romans did use long swords

that was on the down swing of their empire , they were influenced by auxiliary

/thread

What's more interesting than this question, honestly, is how few actual historians understand the answer. Like, I remember as a kid watching so many History Channel and online vids on the Gladius and none of them confidently asserted any of these points.

Maybe that was ~10 yr.s ago only, but I find it baffling it has been such a hard thing to understand.
>short =
>easier to make,
>easier to handle, especially with shield,
>somewhat necessary if still stuck in Bronze Age

Not really no.

great argument

Well it wouldn't be unwieldy, wtf do you want?

The gladius and the spatha were used alongside each other for about 200 years before the gladius was relegated to poorer limitanei troops and then phased out entirely. It wasn't an overnight switch and it's not really fair to say that they did it because of auxiliaries.

Something that often gets overlooked in these discussions that I find interesting is thst late Roman cavalry were often depicted with two swords, a spatha and another sword slightly shorter than it but longer than a gladius.

The average ancient Bronze Jian was still around gladius tier length though.

Its probably not evident in your picture, but here's the famous Goujian Sword relative to the person handling it.

>average tier though

That sword belonged to royalty.

it would, its much harder to stick a longer object through a shield wall, it was one of the main reasons they used a short sword instead of a spear, and its common knowledge they used smaller shields with the spatha.

So I repeat, great argument

The spear comment is wrong considering how much the Romans (and others) did in fact use spears, and that typical Roman formation was not in fact a shield wall but a loose formation meant to give each soldier his own space.
The Gladius was in fact meant for stabbing over or around the shield though, so the idea behind your point still stands. A longer slashing sword is not conducive to how the Romans fought, even moreso when you're holding a massive shield. Short swords just make more sense.

Because they're sweaty little hairy Mediterranean men.

This is mostly true for the greeks, but not the romans, the gladius was their main weapon and pila aren't really spears.

Lmao swerve, lance cuck.

Pike coming through.

True. The cavalry generally used longer swords, but the Roman infantrymen started using them more and more since the late 2nd century AD. The gladius became phased out around or soon after that time period, as it did not work as well with modern tactics of the time. The Romans' move from gladius to spatha swords was not a regression to barbarism, but a progression in order to keep up with their enemies, and hopefully get steps ahead.

when they used spears they used them differently than they would swords, more like a greek phalanx meant more to ward off cavalry than decisively cut through infantry, they kept sword infantry around for that purpose. They didnt need these specialized cohorts in the early empire because they didnt face as great of a cavalry threat. By the late empire, people were fielding a lot more cavalry than they used to, and with more armor. Before the adoption of the gladius they were a greek phalanx, and they switched to the gladius for the advantages I stated but also because sword units are more mobile than spear units, and theyre better at killing other infantry, which is what they needed to do at the time more than anything.

spathas own

Less weight

There is in fact a period of about a hundred years between the adoption of the maniple (non-phalanx) system of Roman military and the adoption of the Gladius. During this time the spear would have been used as the main infantry weapon, a time in which the phalanx was a thing of the past.
Dont forget as well that even after the gladius was first adopted, the middle line (depending on the time period) sometimes used spears while the triarii back line were always spearmen.
This is all Republic and pre-Marian reforms of course by the way.

Metallurgical reasons, every other answer is plain wrong.

>On the contrary, they fought people with longswords and have came up top.

Top?

Being slaughtered and subjugated by Romans is "top" now?

Not really, much of Souther and Eastern Spain was PRE IE Aka Iberian before the Roman conquest and Aquitaine remained PRE IE until the middle ages, Basque are still alive tot his day

Wanna try to read that post again?

Because the quality of metals they used was not good enough to make their swords too long, otherwise they would easily break, but this is just at beginning, latter it became their custom or tactical preference to use short swords to fight.

i guess every roman soldier dropped his gladius and picked up a longsword every time they found a dead gaul.

Oh wait, they didnt, because the gladius worked better in the formations they were using at the time. Because believe it or not there are different tactical advantages involved in long and short swords, and the particular tactical advantages of short swords shined in roman formations. A longer sword means less shield, which was a tradeoff they were willing to make in the late era considering their armor was better and they didnt need as big of a shield anymore.

Long swords were unwieldy as fuck for war. When they were used, it was mainly whipped over the owners head and then bashed someone like a little bitch sending them to the ground.

Romans and greeks where simply not able to make longer swords during the republic era , see here They did make longer swords and used them once their metallurgy caught up.
Thats at least what all current research and sources point to.

>source: my ass

>Long swords were unwieldy as fuck for war.
Long swords, at least in this thread, signifies a blade length of over 70cm. Thats not exactly the double handed bidenhänder you had in mind, which actually weren't that unwieldy themselves.

The Romans started out with spears/hoplites as their main type of soldier with daggers/short swords as a fallback too.

The reason the short sword was popular was because it allowed for closer and denser formations with easy overlap between soldiers. A longer sword makes it harder to fight in a dense formation because of the distance needed to wield it effectively, and spears are much better for reach if that's what you need.

The longest bronze jian is over 90 cm.
Pic here is a Qing dynasty long bronze sword found in terracotta army pits which is nearly 94 cm and it even has the earliest chrome plating rustproof technology in the world.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_swords
ai-journal.com/articles/10.5334/ai.1316/

It's not that they had much of choice, they only where able to make short blades, around 40-50cm max during the late republic. As soon as the Romans have Norricum and other major iron working provinces their blades got longer.
Hard to understand at first, but iron is not just iron and it takes quite a bit of ferro metallurgy to make steel good enough for a long blade sword.

This is true, but it doesnt change the fact that sword units are more mobile than spear units and this the main reason why they switched. Despite not being a traditional phalanx in that they werent a solid, inflexible line but in fact a series of cohorts. On the individual level this means fighting very similarly to a phalanx anyway in most cases. They would form a full battle line before engaging so its not like there were gaps or anything, only real difference is the romans could detatch a cohort and move independently, but when they actually ended up clashing it was in a phalanx style anyway because thats how you use spears in a formation. The triarii are specifically described as using a sort of "charging phalanx" almost like the greeks at marathon, meaning they would lock shields and push forward en masse, still a unique sort of style when compared to traditional phalanxes but a phalanx nonetheless.

The sword made everything the cobort was good at even better, so my points stand since it wasnt an immediate shift as you say, took them about 100 years to realize their hastati and princepes should have swords but they did eventually realize the advantages. A spear wound is easier to treat and does less internal damage than a gladius, and when youre smashed up against another shield wall its easier to attack with it, in the same situation a longer sword would literally be harder to shove through the gaps, and in this sense the romans preferred when this happened because they had an advantage against spears when the fighting got intense and close.

>You can't make a bronze "long sword"
rapiers count

It was a celtish tactic actually for those that could afford the longer blades. There are some accounts that these warriors were used to break the roman line in battle by utilizing this tactic. I am not an expert on this topic, but I do think I read somewhere about the force of the sword being balanced at the point for just this purpose. Essentially, those with big swords could bully their way through the battlefield since it offered a variety of functions. Of course, the romans would have just made those guys into pincushions with their Pila. It was a way of fighting developed in those inter-tribal conflicts and petty wars between the celts.

wew, difficult question, useful max blade length is around 70cm fro bronze, but thats only for optimal alloys and workmanship. practical useful length is much less. It makes much more sense to make spear/lance heads, daggers and short swords with bronze.

Never heard of this and seriously doubt it. Got any source?

*Qin dynasty

They had nothing to compensate for.

Fucking system thought the post was spam. But here's a posting. Apparently it could be used if the blade dulled making it still a very viable weapon to whip around. I can't find the account from a first-hand source that said this method was used to "break shields" which sounds a little to poetic so I read it as breaking formations of shields rather than literally striking so hard as to break a roman shield.

celticcultureblog.tk

Sorry mate, but thats not really a source. Also historic finds and experimental archeology yielded some different results.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus isn't a source? K m8.

Longer swords are a function of economic and technological growth. high/late medieval Europe was more advanced in this respect, especially after the invention of the blast furnace in the 1300s.

Then quote the fucker you stupid shit.

Not just rapiers take irish/British-Iberian-Sardinian swords like these ones

Then even older Central European/Italic Naue II swords such as these

It's inside the blog, a long with a litany of other sources :^)
Don't have the database to quote an exact text, and like I said. Not my field of study.

>Dionysius of Halicarnassus isn't a source? K m8.
Not it isn't, not unless you post an url, a quote and explain why it is relevant to your case.
Also, you might wanna mention why you get from celticcultureblog.tk (Powerful Witchcraft Spells Revealed) to Dionysius of Halicarnassus
>yes, you are a retard

Yes, and thats why it is not a source, if you are to dumb to copy paste the text in question or find real source then this might be not the right thread for you.

Couldn't post the jump to their Celtic equipment section. It's actually quite well done. I already paraphrased, have it context and even went so far as to actually quote a well known source on the topic.

You didn't quote shit, you posted a name and a website that doesn't work.

maybe someone will find this interesting
salimbeti.com/micenei/weapons1.htm

Specifically stated link was being flagged as spam no matter what way I chopped it. Now phone posting. I could post some more silly shit the Celts did, such as their warriors rolling up to the Roman line under their shields and cutting them down at the heels.

>I could post some more silly shit
Yes, or you could finally post a primary source instead of pulling shit out your ass.

>Specifically stated link was being flagged as spam
Maybe you should try a serious website next time then?

Woah I knew about them but I didn't remember some were up to 105 cm

Also I forgot about Iberian and Sard swords from 1650 bc made of arsenical copper

Aegean swords seem to have a really old tradition, they were far from peaceful, I wonder how it was possible for Myceneans to conquer the Minoans

ive read sources that make references to late empire auxiliaries using a "a demi-spatha" would that just be a shortened spatha? or a continuation of the gladius hispaniensis?

Im in agreement with your main point, just filling in the historical gaps.
Not the guy who was disputing your original comment.

I would wonder whether it is a translation error. You'd have to find the exact wording, but my guess is that they are trying to say they used swords that were similar to Spathas, such as the gallic long swords.

S-Size doesn't matter, Anonius! It's all about how broad it is!

Longer swords dont kill any more effectively than short swords!! Your enemies can't feel anything deeper than two inches!

the implication was that they were shorter like gladii though.

Nice site!

I kinda doubt that 105 cm bronze swords were really combat weapons, maybe they're ceremonial swords?

I think most people here vastly underestimate the technical difficulties making a long blade (70cm+) It takes centuries of metallurgical progress to get there, and even then it was left to a handful of specialized towns. I mean even in medieval and early modern times long blade making was reserved to those towns and whole regions and even countries did import their blades.
Supplying an entire army with long steel blade swords would likely have been impossible during roman ages.

Its bent

indeed, likely to brittle, but then, if they used it rapier style maybe the didn't mind. Unless we find a bog guy with one true the sternum it is only speculation.

they were still useful as thrusting weapons and are usually associated with war chariots.
both ere clearly used by a wealthy elite

A spear would be an easier thrusting weapon with better range and using up less metal.

No one ever said wealthy smart elite.

thats a good point.
they could have been used similar to medieval great swords.anti spear but also has the range of spear

it looks more impresive
also it might be easier to handle it than the spear.
It's a lot more compact so you can use it in tighter places and it's heaviest part is near the hilt, as opposed to the spears tip so you can aim it more accurately (maybe i'm wrong)
it's also 3500 years old. It was a far more delicate that most bronze age weapons but one also needs to take into account that a lot weapons found are broken. Such an intact artifact is rare

Any idea how fucked you are when your sword just breaks in full combat?
I doubt those "rapiers" where weapons of war. Bronze is not well suited for long thin blades, thats why you see so many stout blade types, shorter and more cross section.
Maybe they where strictly ceremonial dick enhancers, maybe they had some sick dueling rules going on back or maybe something else.
There is tons of sword types that don't make sense until you know the social context of them. Like an executioner sword doesn't make much sense until you know about capital punishment at the time and a English dueling rapier doesn't make sense unless you know the society and dueling laws of the 17th century.

a rapier is still useful in war, it began as a war weapon meant for bypassing plate armor. Youre probably thinking of those dainty dueling versions that are super thin, but war estocs/rapiers were heavy and surprisingly thick and sturdy, the bending actually prevents the sword from breaking by distributing force. It was used by sailors in boarding or defensive situations, only requires one hand, and keeps your opponent at a distance, the latter two benefits lending themselves to use with a pistol. A heavier sword is unwieldy and not as useful for a sailor in a storm getting attacked by not only other men but nature itself.

*i just wanted to say they were also used in land battles, especially by musketeers, so they werent exclusively naval but thats where they lingered for longer.

i doubt they only carried one weapon
early types of swords also lacked a tang so the hilt breaking off was clearly a constant danger
axe shaft also surprisingly small in diameter if you consider the axes weight so they to must have been prone to breaking
when it comes to mycenian ceremonial weapons the double axes fit the bill. rapier might have been a status symbol, they are found even outside the aegean i doubt they weren't used as weapons, without being able to guess the circumstances

you could just google it, they were definitely war weapons. There are different kinds of rapiers, some of them specialized for duels and some for war.

>a rapier is still useful in war,
First, there is not one style of rapier but dozens, some where weapons of war, some where civilian fashion item.
Second we talk about a bronze weapon, there is a maximum usable length/cross section for weapons, otherwise the blade becomes to brittle or soft for the stress and breaks or bends.
Now until you find a body with one in it or a description of some kind (highly unlikely for bronze age) we only have speculations. Could well be that they used it for war, thrusting from behind shields and all that, maybe not.
Anyone know if they made a reproduction of those long bronze swords?

i think you'd be a very foolish warrior if you didn't expect or make preparations for equipment failure and your right bronze is not well suited for long swords but in comparison to what in the bronze age? steel? doesn't exist yet.
I agree they could be a ceremonial blade but it could also be a specialized battlefield weapon not used for slashing we just dont know.