Why the Gladius Was the Perfect Weapon for the Roman Army
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- Опубликовано: 4 окт 2024
- For more than half a century, the Gladius was the de facto weapon of choice for any self-respecting Roman soldier. Its value was proven repeatedly in the close combat battles of that era.
From the Series: World of Weapons: Close Combat bitly.com/38K0PEo 
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“Perfect for the formations in which the Romans always fought”
Shows romans just randomly brawling 1on1s
This "reenactment" scene was awfully wrong. The gladius was only effective in closed formations with shields. In open fights or duels longer swords were far superior.
@@norbertfleck812 most movie fights and battles have nothing to do with reality, they are intended to look impressively and add dramatic effects.
No, they moved and fought as a unit. you didn't have one gladius coming at you, you had several.
I imagine there's a Lindy vid out there where he's repulsed at such a thing happening.
and no shields
Why does the reenactment show soldier attacking without a shield, swinging their gladius wildly, like some sort of club?
And why do you use generic word "gladius"(by Romans in reality used for any sword since it merely means just "sword" and nothing else)like if it was a typological term for just one specific kind of sword?
@@paprskomet Because that is the word most often used in modern times for a specific type of sword. There are other examples of words for specific types of swords that simply mean sword in their source language, such as the Persian Shamshir. But nobody would refer to a gladius or spatha as a Roman shamshir, or to a shamshir as a Persian gladius.
yeah, bad
@CJ Which is why I subscribe to such channels instead of watching a lot of legacy to learn history. My question was obviously posed for more of a rhetorical purpose, to point out the questionable quality of the reenactment.
@@paprskomet In Latin, "gladius" means sword. But in English, it's "a short sword used by Roman legionaries," according to Collins. A lot of words work this way. In Japanese, "kanji" means "Chinese character." But in English, it means "a system of Japanese writing using Chinese characters." There is also "ninja" (spy) and "sensei" (teacher).
Century = 100 years
Millennium = 1,000 years
"Special steel." Well, that explains it then.
yeah....they just say it because they don't want to bother with the high carbon stuff as the majority won't understand it,
aka, lazy writing
Blood Angel 🤣🤣🤣
vin 950 have you seen today’s kids?
@odegaard Can you please tell me when and where those soldiers ever have been effective? Vietnam? Afghanistan? Iraq? I dont see one major conflict in the last decades where the US troops where able to win and stabilize the region?
@@bernhardwidmer886 Some of the blame is due to lack of governmental support, the men & women on the ground did their part and they did it well. I place most of the blame on the American citizens, they are easily distracted and rarely pay attention to important facts. Those that vote in Congressmen or women rarely hold Congress accountable once they are in office.
Pretty sure the Romani used the gladius for more than 50 years
You mean gypsies?
You mean decades?
I think he intended to say 5 centuries. Mistake should have been caught.
Romans*
@@schmutza_5426 no, in italian " I ROMANI" are the romans. There are not any other meanings.
I could legit watch a whole series about the Romans
Check out Kings and.Generals channel
For weapons, try the Metatron. For battles, Kings and General. Netflix has a series, Roman Empire, each episode focusing on a controversial Emperor (i.e. Caligula, Julius Ceasar).
shaider1982 Yehh I know about the Netflix one good show
Check out Historia Civilis
HBO series Rome
1:20 "In the beginning of the 3rd century BC, they ruled over the majority of the known world"
Yea, you need better script writers
Hiyuke La Vie it should be 1st century BC till 5th century AD right?
@@diegozinedine514
Right about there. Caesar doesn't subdue Gaul until then, and Claudius really gets the campaigns in Britannia going.
@Asura Khæñ
No, Greece is already subdued by the 140s BC
You didn't know that Alexander was the first Roman Emperor?
1st punic war was around 220 BC
“They would grab the sword, unsheathe it and wait for attack”
tHe mORe yOU knOw
@@wallieburger They also had to stand on two feet, not just one. That's important for balance.
Not only that, they used their shields to prevent the enemy sword from making contact. Roman strategy at its finest.
@@wallieburger I think everyone's missing this part. The Romans were trained to draw their swords one-handed, and therefore without lowering their shield wall. This meant that they could throw their pila at charging enemies to weaken them and then still be ready for the impending crash.
High IQ moment
Its crazy that we get ACCURATE, fun, and informative videos from regular history RUclipsrs. Yet here is THE SMITHSONIAN, completely botching a 2 minute video.
To be fair the smithsonian is the one responsible for uncovering the content for those RUclipsrs to present to us in the first place. To be unfair they should stick to that.
legacy media just always get everything wrong..
Government in a nut shell.
This video looks very good. I don't see any problem with it
Post again and specify what you think is wrong with this video.
It’s not that the sword was such a great sword, it was pretty basic. They trained a bunch with it and they fought using the swords advantages. They were just really well trained soldiers so the sword worked because they used it correctly.
1000s of years later, they will look at the ak47 and say it was a good ancient weapon 😂😂
@vin 950 the Professional army existed after the Romans conquered most of the Mediterranean Sea.
No doubt using anything correctly matters. But design matters too. Not sure the design advantages of the gladius are properly explained here or are even well understood in general. Why a short broad sword? Why not a longer but thinner blade that gives you bigger range with your thrusts?
A short sword is certainly easier to swing in a cramped space. A short sword can also be worn on the right hand side but what's the benefit of that? One possibility is that the Romans actually used to hold their shields with both hands with swords sheathed and just knock down a rank of enemy soldiers with blunt force from time to time. That tactic was used in alternation with using the gladii. You couldn't see what was going on behind the shields held in close formation, you didn't know what tactic to expect. You didn't know if the swords were sheathed and the legionary was going to mow you down with shield held in both hands or if their gladii were out and they would use that. If the gladii are out, it's bad to stand too close to the rank of legionaries because the gladius is far more nimble and pliable at short range. If the gladius is in, don't give them space to build up momentum to knock you down with the shields. But you don't know whether the swords are in or out so you can't decide your tactic.
Ben Vasilinda yes, but it also was their secondary weapon, because they threw their two pila at the start of the battle
@@jamespower5165 explained correctly!
I’m pretty sure that the scutum shield was the most important part of their success, the gladius was short to not get in the shield’s way
No the gladius was very important almost no other army used swords as their main weapon at the time they all used Spears.
I'd argue that their formations where a more integral part of their success along with their culture. Typically in ancient warfare (and even today), one-on-one brawls are not desirable (I mean do you want to charge into a bunch of pointy stuff?), formations are a perfect way to artificially increase you numbers, you know, "United we stand, divided we fall." Their war mentality culture as well as incentives for joining the army also increases morale.
@@florix7889 and as the video shows, spears arent some magical death stick. Because its useless against a sword and shield, which was the predominant weapon from romans to mid medieval
@@florix7889 the celts and gauls used long slashing swords in combination with round or oblong shields. the romans had an advantage as they could press up against them with their big shield, and use the short gladius to stab at their legs or abdomen.
@@mortenovergaard7397 Don't forget the Dacian with their mighty Falx!
"For more than half a century"?
More like half a millennium.
They don’t know the diff between a century and a millenium..🤦🏻♂️🙄
Technically it's correct
At the Smithsonian Museum, nothing is more than a couple centuries old so maybe that threw them off.
Well he's not wrong.
Yes, but you have to remember, the Romans used this sword in conjunction with their shield. In close combat, they would smash their shield with the center which had a heavy metal boss in their enemy. The shield would make their enemy dizzy or disoriented, which set them up for an unguarded moment, where the Roman sword would make a large stabbing wound into the chest or lower body of the enemy. One tool let the other to do its deadly work and it worked most times.
I love that in all the footage of the men practing attack and formation the scutum is more important than the sword
The metatron has joined the chat.
Wait a minute. A person from the germanic tribe is explaining about the gladius?! The imperator wouldn’t be happy to hear this.
...and why should that be of any significance?That sword type was not even of Roman origin but adopted from barbarians.
He's a citizen of magna Germania
perharbs who is he? You are talking about Julius Caesar while there are many other Caesar in the Roman Empire.
Toteburg Forest ring a bell?
Foderati would like to have a word with you
Their strongest weapon was the "Discipline of the Legions".
And well, they knew how to use a short sword effectively. That's all to it!
Their strongest weapon was engineering.
Its a formation weapon.
Nah, their biggest weapon was their stubbornness.
When they lost that, they lost everything.
I still don't know why it was the perfect weapon.
Cause it was swift and reliable
Maybe because it is made for fighting from a shield wall formation(testudo formation)?
Yo put it simply, it was the pefect weapon for the idea of warfare the Romans had. It was swift, and combined perfectly with the great protection the scutum (the shield) gave them.
I like he they demonstrate more or or less accurate Roman formations and tactics, then cut to a reenactment that would have any soldier whipped for being so undisciplined.
The romans chose the Gladius over the spear since it was more maneuverable and could be easily employed in more complex formations
Just visited the Roman Army Museum on the Hadrians Wall walk. Amazing discipline and training with heavy lead filled mock Gladii. They were not huge people back then but they marched with everything they needed to construct and cook fight and eat weighing 30-40 kilograms. Very, very tough! If you couldn’t hack, it you cleaned the latrines, so they were highly motivated
50 yrs ? Ahhhhhhhh lil more than that buddy
" More than half a century " The gladius was in use for hundreds of years, and eventually evolved into the Roman spatha sword.
My boys will love this show. Hope its available via Roku. -ANRT
I hate seeing romans without a shield
@Ken Penalosa
Romans laugh in "Empire"
@Ken Penalosa won't be so badass when a spear is rammed in your chest. Good luck parrying that with your galdius.
I've watched a couple of these Smithsonian fantasies now and they seem consistently more wrong than right. I thought they were scientists.
The Smithsonian is too busy today working on their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to create any really accurate history videos.
0:42
Never ever attack a target by holding a spear this way in your hand... & never ever attack with spear & shield solo a man with sword & shield... you always lose.
True Story. Learned it on Dark Souls.
no its the correct gip. hoever one spearmen against two swordsmen isnt fair.
"Special steel"... was it Valyrian?
It was until their opponents started using mass cavalry and on TOP of that armored cavalry. Parthian and Sassasind heavily armored Cataphracts, Sarmatians, armored Alan cavalry, armored Hunnic cavalry and fast riding horse archers, Gothic armored cavalry.
Once these forces were encountered the gladius' weakness was found in her lack of reach. So the Barbarian or Germanic Long sword was redeveloped into the Roman spatha which became the standard issue from the legio to the cavalry and auxilia.
And for one thousand years the Spatha would be the fundamental sword of all Europe, first in Roman form, then into the Frankish spatha in turn the Vikings adopted the Frankish sword and thus the Viking sword and finally the Viking turned Normans developed the Spatha based Norman arming sword of the 11th-13th century, completing 1000 years of Spatha which was also kind of a longer variant of the Gladius itself
Wow, so cool that they went back in time to get actual footage of ancient Romans
half a century??? maybe half a millennium
The explanation is shorter than the blade itself.
The first concept of PARRY + COUNTER ATTACK.
0:44 wow look at that reach 😎
"They ruled the known world in the 3rd century BC"... Isn't cable TV history just awesome?
They mean the world that they know😂 in China they have been fighting to unite for nearly a thousand years at that time and the ancient Mongolian walk the dessert and plain and looting northern China for century and don't get me start talking about Southeast Asia country.
We’re really spoiled in the age of RUclips when there are hundreds of youtubers making mini-documentaries about specific things in Rome. The history channel back in the day made over generalizations about everything.
3rd century AD they mean...3rd century BC they were still conquering the Italian peninsula and fighting with Carthage. First century AD Cesear conquers Gaul. Greatest extent of the Empire....from Britan to Syria happened in 117AD and remained that way till 476AD
@@dshock85First Century BC you mean.
That short sword is useless without a shield, the nearest spearman would skewer you before you got him within your fighting range. Add the classic big Roman shield with boss in a cooperative formation, and you have an effective way to advance in close under protection, then with a short, sharp, handy sword to manoeuvre around the shield protection to attack your assailant (s). I can easily see how this is highly effective as a fighting technique.
@Smithsonian Channel this video contains many historical inaccuracies listed below by many viewers. The mistakes include the amount of years the gladius was used for and stating that the Roman Empire had power over X amount of land in the 3rd century BC and not the second and third century AD as is the case. please like so Smithsonian corrects this gibberish. Cheers
This is the quality we miss on the History Channel.
Their weapons system - pila, scuta, gladii, was perfect for fighting, mostly unarmoured, charging Gauls with shields, who are probably bigger and more physically imposing than you, in a close formation tactic. You can't really look at the gladius in isolation. In fact, when facing heavily armoured guys, its weakness as a fighting system became apparent, Hence we get Jewish clubmen being drafted in, and as every Hema guy knows, percussion weapons rule when heavy armour is a factor. Interestingly, the advice I read somewhere, if up against an armoured guy, was stab at the face, presumably something that came out of the civil wars, Roman v. Roman.
Haven’t seen that lift shield and stab maneuver before. Nasty. Didn’t really explain why the gladius was so advantageous.
A heavier sword needs more room to accelerate and build up energy, also you have much more problems with overhead attacks as you may pierce your fellow mate to the back.
Yup. I understood it as being that short stabbing swords are much easier to use in close-packed ranks than the long slashing swords phalanx infantry used.
@@FlyxPat Yeah but i definitely agree with you they didnt explain it directly, kinda need to think your part which wouldnt be easy for someone who has no knowledge about swordcombat what so ever.
The Zulus used the same tactic with their iklwa close quarter spear.
Very formidable for those circumstances.
0:51 the guy with the spear could have protected his torso if he just kept the shield in front of him.
I'm intrigued by the shield/Gladius tactic of smashing into the opponent with the bottom edge of the shield and following under that with the Gladius. It conceals the Gladius' approach!
I'm sure that he meant to say, "For more than half a MILLENNIUM..."
When you understand that on a person of normal ( not over weight ) size the Vital organs and blood vessels are only 3 or 4 inches under the skin this is an Awesome Weapon !
Everyone is born a warrior. But your MADE a soldier
What an Extrotrainary video of history. Thank you for sharing this with those that enjoy your channel
This was NOT a very informative video. I hope the exhibitions aren't as superficial.
0:10 looks like a fresh young Tirones recruit. Pretty well equipped for a young kid.
Gladius was a copy of a sword they saw in Hispania
This, the khopesh, and the kopis are my favourite swords.
“Half a Century” is probably a mistake for “half a Millenia.”
But is the "Gladius" as WOKE as the Smithsonian has become?
what this woke things that has happen to smithsonian?
Ah the German weapons expert whose people has a long history of being stabbed by the gladius
And a long history in defeating the romans. "Varus, Varus, where did you leave my legions?"
@@norbertfleck812 Germanicus Julius Caeser: where is your wife Arminius?
Germans one of the few People who actually didnt get just murdered for centuries
" They make a desert, and call it peace". Tacitus
Well said.
I see why the tower shield is good, the sword just seemed to be a normal short sword.
Wow, archived footage from the battlefield
Other civilizations: make it longer, I want longer swords and spears.
How long do you want your sword to be?
Roman: no
Iberean people: why Roman copy my sword?
While double gladius builds were ineffective, the double tower shield build was especially good at body blocking and stun-locking enemies while your friendly phantoms ganked them.
So the gladius was a mental weapon causing people to drop their guard.
i watched this for school litterly one of the most entertaning things i did
Nasty weapon for the time. Can't Imagine a shield was coming at me with all those "teeth"
The Spartan Xiphos predates the Gladius. The short sword was simply the most practical for the tight formations that the Greeks and Romans favored.
That's right. Romans copied their first swords from Greek xiphos, then from the Iberians of Spain (this gladius hispaniensis) and later they would copy the German long spatha. Very clever!
Not true, you both should read what Livio and Polivio said about it. most important Polivio they both said that in the second Punic war, the Celtiberians mercenaries employed by Carthage, used an excellent sword effective both for cutting and stabbing, also said that the Roman army didnt wait until the end of the war to adopt such a design... before that Roman army use a sword copied from the Greek (not only Spartan) Xiphos, and they weren't not similar at all.
the roomands didnt acctually fight in tight formations, they needed 3 feet and fought indiviually. meaning they didnt fight in a shieldwall, so they need more space to move thier shields individually. if he had another spear men behind him with that grip. he could have now trusted into the unprotected chest of the legionary
It also helps that the spearman is using his weapon wrong on the reenactment.
And completely disregarding his own safety by swinging his shield out of the way. And just stands there as the “legionnaires” very slowly advance.
Steel making was a hard process back in ancient times so most swords at that time we're made of iron
Dear god, this again?
When you melt iron, it becomes steel. There are just different qualities of steel. there is nothing such as "Iron sword" or "Iron armor". It is always steel.
Also this specific uniform and armor, from lorica segmentata to red tunic to helmet, have became popular in Trajan era. And people pretty much used average quality steel in their equipment, heck it is even better than majority of the "steel swords" they sell online
@@hannibalburgers477
1. The Romans couldn't/didn't melt iron. They didn't use furnaces that were hot enough. (Only in the middleages did this appear in Europe)
2. Steel is an Alloy of Carbon and Iron.
Melting iron won't give you steel.
3. Reducing Iron Oxides, will give you steel.
Iron ore is basically rust that became a rock (or part of it). Extracting iron from ore, is the process of turning rust back into iron.
Carbon was used to create Carbon Monoxide. Which was used as the reducing agent by ancient people. It combines with the oxygen in rust, to form carbon dioxide, leaving iron behind. This can happen from 800°C (well below melting point.)
When iron is heated, the space between iron atoms expand. If the iron is heated enough, and those spaces become large enough, carbon atoms can be soaked up like a spunge. When cooled, the carbon atoms are trapped. And Voila, you now have steel.
This starts happening near 900°C.
It is possible to reduce rust, below Carburization temperature (and without melting any iron, obviously). But its virtually impossible to achieve that without the means of accurately monitoring and regulating temperature.
Since carbon was used to create their reducing agent, and they couldn't precisely regulate temperature, they inadvertently ended up making steel.
Even we can't produce pure iron economically. Pure iron is extremely expensive. What we call iron, is also technically steel. Very low carbon steel.
The Romans also had low carbon steel. Called Wrought iron. Their armor was intentionally made of low carbon steel (not sure why🤷).
So, in non-technical terms, yes the Romans could and did make iron.
@@tylerdurden3722 thanks for the detailed explanations
Just once I'd like to see a movie or TV show that acknowledges the effectiveness of roman weapons, armour and formations on the battlefield.
History Channel: *Ahem* It's the aliens!
Remember it's not how big it is,it's how you use it😉😉.
yep hahaha, the technique matters
INCREDIBILI
Longswords are superior but due to tight formation, long blades can hit the man next to you on accident when swinging(because thrusts are not always viable and roman would have spears instead but clearly didn't) so shorter blades were a trade off-bit less killing power but much less friendly fire and shields cover the deficiency of the shorter sword vs longer. And it was the formation that helped more than the shield anyway, so the trade off was actually better than equal, was superior.
Except it wasn't, it was forgotten around the 3rd century and it was replaced with longer swords like the spatha which is where the word for sword in most modern romance languages comes from
The gladius conquered the ancient world, not the spatha.
The gladius’ design gives you perfect control over it
I think that we assign a huge deal of importance to technology in warfare because over the last few centuries early adoption of ever changing technologies lead to victories on battlefields. But we forget that technologies were changing at a very very slow pace before the age of Enlightenment. Ancient Rome operated with technologies more similar to lets say Napoleonic wars vs. Napoleonic wars vs. WW2, even though there was over 1500 year gap between the first 2 and around 130 years or so between the second 2. So, the shape, strength and length of the sword in the ancient world played a fairly small role. Barbarians and empires fought with very similar technologies (besides maybe siege weapons). They KEY to dominance was organization and discipline of the Roman armies. Standardization of weapons, uniformity of training, command chain, roads and supply lines, and tactics were all far more important than the weapons they fought with.
there was nearly no difference. more important was industrial capacety, the fact that rome could give everyone plush the auxlilarys armour.
@@giftzwerg7345 yes, but even "industrial capacity" wasn't a huge issue. You had iron deposits all over the world and you needed a very small amount of weapons made out of it compared to modern numbers. A large army was a very small group of people in the ancient world. The largest Roman army to see battle was no more than 80,000 men strong. You don't need a ton of industrial capacity to arm them. It all came down to discipline, standardization and logistics, in my view. Oh, and of course, merit of generals and Republics like Rome and even Roman Empire had a lot of competition for top general spots unlike more despotic Eastern powers.
An very effective weapon.
the glzdisu is the sword that spilled the more blood in history
And still, today, we got a lot of them; laws, calendars, etc, etc, etc
That roman soldier in the middle has some interesting armor
Very little information and what there is is questionable. By 300BC the Romans had subjugated most of Italy, not the Known World.
The gladius was well suited to its purpose but it was not a magic design that won wars. The Romans real strength was their discipline and training. They were able to maintain formation under the most extreme conditions. In war, cohesiveness is everything.
Flavius Josephus defined the training of Roman soldiers as "battles without bloodshed", and battles as "bloody trainings".
the weight specifications are weird as well. 1,2 kg?? my Albion weight 685 grams.
I think it is accurate shadiversity say something about the weight of the Gladius... But more importantly YOU HAVE A ALBION!!
WHERE CAN I BUY IT!!
The Gladius is strong and heavy, so you can use it in narrow fights with shields without bending it. It also served as a mace - delivering heavy and strong strikes.
@@norbertfleck812 A mace?? No, just no.
The frost, sometimes it makes the blade stick!
"The Gladius standard for more than half a century"
Quick google: The gladius was in service 3rd century BC - 3rd century AD.
600 years? more like half a millennia...
The Greeks used a pretty similar sword design. I imagine the design was around before the romans started using it.
"More than half a century" technically correct but that's like saying "Julius Caesar died more than 100 years ago."
Spatha: single hand combat.
Gladius: for formation combat.
Cool sword but how does it fare against ... the lightsaberrrrr
Crazy what bad managers can do destroy a whole civilization.
0:03 sry to burst your bubble but half a century is 50 years. I think you mean half a millennia.
no way the cameraman just time travelled to ancient rome 💀
Battle of Teutoberg where three legions were ambushed and wiped out by the Germanic tribes is an example of the shortcomings of the gladius. The gladius was effective only in formations defended by the large rectangular scutum.
More than half a millennium, not half a “century”
Typo: U said the Romans used the Gladius for half a century. U meant half a Millennium
Gladius and scutum, that’s the winner combination
El famoso Gladius, fue copiado de los Guerreros Hispanos!!🇪🇸🇪🇸
Well... it was copied from the Greek xiphos, but close enough!
A longer sword would have been better while keeping the soldier protected without overreaching
You have to respect and fear that sword.
Little is known about India, China, the Far East and deep Africa during Roman rule
but one thing is known, Alexander was stopped by India in 330 BC and Rome did not even get that far
The world's wealth was further East and Rome knew it.
Pretty handy sword.
The gladius and lorica were developed in Portugal and Spain.
"Promised me the Known World, he did."
The Roman's were masters of close-quarter fighting between the spears of a phalanx.
So swords always fall to spears, UNLESS in close quarters or when accompanied with shields.
In theory, Romans soldiers not engaged the front enemy, but, the enemy in front of right companion by multiple side and quick stabs with Gladius.