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Weapons System

Spatha

Ancient

The spatha was a long, straight sword measuring roughly half a meter to a meter in length, used across the Roman Empire from the first to sixth centuries AD. Celtic mercenaries introduced it to Roman forces during the Second Punic War, and it was used mainly by cavalry before infantry adopted it around the second century, gradually replacing the shorter gladius as the standard heavy infantry sword. It remained in use through the Migration Period and influenced the swords of the Viking age and the later knightly swords of medieval Europe. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Weapon Class
Sword 1
Introduced Year
50 1
Classification
Service Status
Retired 1
Weapon Class
Weapon Class (category)
Sword / Polearm / Bladed 1
Connections

Operated By

Roman Legion, Armed Forces and Units
Source Wikipedia: Spatha

Used In

Second Punic War, Wars
Source Wikipedia: Spatha
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Spatha
  • Lead paragraph
    The spatha was a type of straight and long sword, measuring between 0.5 and 1 metre (20 and 40 inches)
  • Weapon class (sword-polearm-blade) is a pre-industrial/melee weapon type by its own nature per the entity's own sourced description text; not carried in current active military service.
  • Article text
    The spatha of literature appears in the Roman Empire in the 1st century AD as a weapon used by presumably Celtic auxiliaries and gradually became a standard heavy infantry weapon by the 3rd century AD, relegating the gladius to use as a light infantry weapon.
  • Used In: Second Punic War, Article body
    During the Second Punic War, Celtic mercenaries introduced the spatha to the Roman army.
  • In Group: Ancient Swords, Lead sentence
    The spatha was a type of straight and long sword, measuring between 0.5 and 1 metre (20 and 40 inches), with a handle length of between 18 and 20 centimetres (7 and 8 inches), in use in the territory of the Roman Empire during the 1st to 6th centuries AD. Later swords, from the 7th to 10th centuries, like the Viking swords, are recognizable derivatives and sometimes subsumed under the term spatha.
View the Source
Wikidata: Spatha
Wikidata Q60870, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)View the Source
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