Author

Illustrator

Writer, publisher and archaeologist M.C. Bishop is an authority on all aspects of Ancient Rome at war, with particular emphasis on arms and armour of the era. He has written, co-written or edited dozens of books and articles on the subject, and leads tours of Hadrian's Wall and other Roman sites. This is Mike's first book for Osprey.

Peter Dennis was born in 1950. Inspired by contemporary magazines such as Look and Learn, he studied illustration at Liverpool Art College. Peter has since contributed to hundreds of books, predominantly on historical subjects, including many Osprey titles. A keen wargamer and modelmaker, he is based in Nottinghamshire, UK.

Other titles in the series

WPN No: 5 ISBN: 978 1 84908 151 1

WPN No: 7 ISBN: 978 1 84908 431 4

WPN No: 30 ISBN: 978 1 78200 085 3

THE FLAMETHROWER

THE COMPOSITE BOW

MIKE LOADES

THE GLADIUS

M.C. BISHOP

Series Editor Martin Pegler

This electronic edition published in 2016 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Osprey Publishing,

PO Box 883, Oxford, OX1 9PL, UK

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© 2016 Osprey Publishing Ltd.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Print ISBN: 978 1 4728 1585 9 PDF ebook ISBN: 978 1 4728 1586 6 ePub ebook ISBN: 978 1 4728 1587 3

Index by Rob Munro Typeset in Sabon and Univers Originated by PDQ Media, Bungay, UK

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Acknowledgements

I am especially grateful to Peter Johnsson and Dr David Sim for sharing with me the benefit of their expert knowledge on sword manufacture. Chris Haines and Martin White of the Ermine Street Guard kindly allowed me to examine and photograph their own accurate reproductions of both Mainz- and Pompeii-type gladii and their scabbards. I am indebted to Jon Coulston, Ross Cowan, Christian Darce, Eckhard Deschler-Erb, Sophie Hay, Tom Hayter, Salvatore Ortisi, Andreas Pangerl and Cesare Rusalen for allowing me to use their photographs and illustrations. Special thanks must also go to John Smith for timely assistance with illustrations and references, while Duncan Campbell also helped with references. I must also thank Jon Coulston, Simon James and David Sim for agreeing to read and comment upon preliminary drafts of the text. While this book has certainly benefited from all of these contributions, all faults, errors and idiosyncrasies that remain are my sole responsibility.

Author's note

The tables of dimensions include reference numbers for Miks’ (2007) catalogue of Roman swords. Swords with no such number were not included in that publication, either because they were not deemed to be Roman or are recent discoveries.

Editor's note

Metric units of measurement are used in this book. For ease of comparison please refer to the following conversion table:

1m = 39.37in 1cm = 0.39in 1mm = 0.04in 1kg = 2.20lb 1g = 0.04oz

Cover illustrations are (top) © M.C. Bishop, courtesy of the Ermine Street Guard, and (bottom) © Osprey Publishing.

Title-page photograph: relief from Palmyra depicting three deities wearing gladii in frame scabbards, lamellar armour, and Parthian clothing, 1st century AD. (Photo: © World Imaging)

Artist's note

Readers may care to note that the original paintings from which the battlescenes in this book were prepared are available for private sale. All reproduction copyright whatsoever is retained by the Publishers. All enquiries should be addressed to:

Peter Dennis, ‘Fieldhead’, The Park, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire NG18 2AT, UK, or email magie.h@ntlworld.com

The Publishers regret that they can enter into no correspondence upon this matter.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION	4
DEVELOPMENT Adopt and adapt	8
USE Cut and thrust	33
IMPACT The sword that conquered an empire	62
CONCLUSION	74
GLOSSARY	76
BIBLIOGRAPHY	78