Why would the gladius hispaniensis be a main battle weapon? (2025)

Påsan said:

Probably the same reason why the Viking and Anglo-Saxons used the shortsword seax in their shield walls.

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I am not sure about Anglo-Saxon in 9th Century but Saxon in 4th Century used seax because its metalwork industry was most primitive among Germans, hence Saxon could not create sufficient spatha and had to rely on cheap stuff.

Hanny said:

It had nothing to do with facing pike phalnxes.

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Maniple formation was in fact adopted during Second Samnite War.

Look the Camillan legion was probably an adaption of the shieldwall/hoplite phalanx formation with add skirmishers. It had the weight to deal with Etruscan hoplites & cav, and the flexibility to take on less dense Oscan formations too.

This was developed further by contact with actual hoplite and pike phalanxes in Graeca Magna. The first Punic war shows the Roman army in the classic three line formation, it has depth, weight and can go toe-to-toe with the wide range of Carthaginian mercenary forces (typically Spanish and Greek).

The specific adoption of the Gladius Hispaniensis was made in the second Punic war, probably as a direct consequence of the perceived gap in quality between the legions and Hannibal's extraordinary army. The Roman state made up the "equipment gap" between the elite Spanish and Gallic warriors (typically "noble" high status warrior caste) and the Roman and allied farmers "non noble" status (who were only able to purchase adequate rather than top line arms without state assistance).

IIRC state arsenals were employed by Athens and others to arm a portion of their troops but this is a big step, like giving footsoldiers the best firearms available rather than standard issue. I guess it reflects the change in the manpower equation as Hannibal evaporate significant portions of the available Roman pool.

hellheaven1987 said:

I am not sure about Anglo-Saxon in 9th Century but Saxon in 4th Century used seax because its metalwork industry was most primitive among Germans, hence Saxon could not create sufficient spatha and had to rely on cheap stuff.

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Everyone used seaxes until the shield wall went obsolete in the high Middle Ages. As a sidearm primarily for use in the shield wall, not as a replacement for swords and axes.

anyway contrary to Hollywood tactics, was not the Roman legionaries usually advancing in a extremely aggressive manner?

hellheaven1987 said:

Maniple formation was in fact adopted during Second Samnite War.

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Correct, but not related to the question of the side arm in use by the tactical unit, the side arm in use then, ie greek style sword, or the gladius later on, or that the cohort replaced the maniple as the standard manouver element, both asa result of Latins fighting in uneven ground Samnite/Spain saw a change in unit structure. The change off side arm isa different question.

Cyclops said:

The second century crisis accelerated the change in the source of manpower. Even before the chaos of the second century (and earlier for the bulk of the cavalry) Roman armies included larger proportions of non-citizens and even foreigners, presumably Germanic types whose military culture preferred longer swords. With the economic squeeze the cost of fully training men would've been harder to meet, so "military caste" warriors with "native experience" may well have been recruited, and they'd want their familiar weapons.

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I actually think it went the other way around. Rome exported a lot of weapons to Germania. A lot of the really good Germanic swords were from Roman arsenals. The Spatha was long used by cavalry.

One thing the Romans often did in the east was adopt looser formations. This gave them more room to wield a longer weapon, and the longer reach of the Spatha would enable a Roman soldier to more easily attack Persian cavalry.

The Germanic tribes in the migration era soon became hard to distinguish from their Roman enemies, as Germanic victory over Roman armies, and their occasional service in the armies of Rome led to the Germanic tribes adopting Roman equipment en masse, even enough equipment to equip the lowly Germanic footsoldier in the same manner as his Roman opposite.

As Lindybiege recently pointed out in one of his enjoyably rambling videos just yesterday i think, the gladius isn't actually a short sword, it's just not a long sword or a great sword. It's maybe like 6 inches shorter than a viking age arming sword or spatha. Those six inches or so help optimize it for close in thrusting, but still.

It's basically a question of whether you're going to fight on foot or on horseback. A horseman needs a missile weapon like a javelin or bow, a thrusting spear or long sword for medium ranged combat against nearby infantry, and a mace, axe, or dagger for fighting against an enemy horseman. It's not like you have a ton of room to maneuver on horseback in a battle. You're going to come up besides the other horse, grab each other, by the shirts hockey style and swing away at each other's faces with your maces and hopefully kill him before taking too much in return.

Iranians were better at cavalry because they had better kit for it and a better training system. Romans had the infantry thing down to a science.

Eventually horse to infantry ratios changed and Romans drifted away from marching shock troops to mounted ones.

Slaytaninc said:

I actually think it went the other way around...

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Yeah very good point, lots of shared tech, you see lotsa Keltic tech leaking into Italy and I stands to reason it happened elsewhere. The GH itself was a tech leak from Hispania of course.

Condottiere 40K said:

Cavalry based armies give strategic mobility at the expense of providing vast stores of grain and fodder. The Romans built up a vast transport network that compensated for having primarily an infantry based military, but failed to develop heavy nor bow armed cavalry early enough, not to become the arm(s) of decision, but to keep the similarly armed opponents at bay long enough to move the infantry into position.

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It is pretty obviously why Republic did not focus on cavalry much, just like most Greek City States; technically cavalry is for rich men who have nothing to do daily and hence have time to wasting on practicing mounting warfare.

Cyclops said:

Yeah very good point, lots of shared tech, you see lotsa Keltic tech leaking into Italy and I stands to reason it happened elsewhere. The GH itself was a tech leak from Hispania of course.

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Well I'm following the ideas of Peter Heather. Of course that is one of his least controversial opinions.

FWIW I think he's right, the rest of the field is just slow to catch on.

Well the Gladius did come from Hispania, but by the time it was replaced it had evolved well beyond its Spanish roots.

hellheaven1987 said:

It is pretty obviously why Republic did not focus on cavalry much, just like most Greek City States; technically cavalry is for rich men who have nothing to do daily and hence have time to wasting on practicing mounting warfare.

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This became less true under Marius, although it took a long time after the Republic ended before the Romans had an actual good native cavalry force, although arguably the Republic didn't need one, the local cavalry it did recruit was good enough for most operations the Romans found themselves in.