Talk:Gladius

message: I removed the number 1 source for the Gladius Hispaniensis because it opened to a "file not found" screen, and renamed the other two as no. 1 & 2 respectively. Spartan198 (talk) 11:13, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source Example 

message: The picture seen on the right used to be on this page.  However, comparing it with the pictures in the external links, the proportions are totally wrong - this is a knife, not a sword.  It is also inscribed with what appears to be Tengwar.  I think it's better to have no picture than a misleading one, but in case someone disagrees I'm preserving it here. --Andrew 21:57, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)
:I don't think anyone will disagree with you there. Any way besides replicas there are no (functional) modern Gladii so no mention of them is needed. Robrecht 01:49, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is actually a traditional Swiss dagger. It was mistaken for a gladius, but clearly is not one. Rama 13:19, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture 

message: The blade was held flat, relative to the ground, so as to slip through ribs or ribbed armor
I have serious doubts about this claim. Stabbing was the main tactic of Roman legionaries, but sources and depictions show that gladii were also used for slashing which would have been awkward with a blade held horizontally. Furthermore the Romans favourite target was the stomach were there are no ribs to worry about; as for vertically segmented armour, that was mostly carried by themselves and there was relatively little legionary vs legionary combat in the imperial period. This tactic could of course have been used in certain situations, but the article seems to suggest it was the standard method of a Roman legionary.
:I've been wondering about this myself. It would be nice if the original poste would add a source, but unfortunately they were anonymous and thus far have not responded to the request I put on their talk page. --Iustinus 19:50, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Horizontal blade

message: I thought that the Gladius was derived from improvements on the greek short leaf patter sword of whose name I am temporarily ignorant.  The article suggests that the Gladius was derived from the CeltIberian long sword.  I believe that this is factually incorrect because the CeltIberian long sword was the basis for the spatha not the gladius.  The spatha being of course the longer, slashing weapon carried by the later legions of the empire on campaigns such as Emperor Valens and his tragedy at Adrianople in the early fifth century.  I am simply wondering as to the historical accuracy of stating that the Gladius was derived from the CeltIberian long sword.
-Gaius
:The gladius, based on the consensus of most major researchers in this field, was most likely derived from the Iberian "gladius hispaniensis" in the 3rd to early 2nd centuries BCE, during the First or Second Punic War against Carthage. The Romans even retained the name "gladius hispaniensis" which is a clear indication of where they adopted it from. Initially it was fairly long, but as time progressed it became shorter as the legions developed into a professional body. However, by the 4th Century CE they had changed to the longer spatha. Perhaps you are thinking of even earlier swords which were shorter than the "gladius hispaniensis"?
:As for that fantasy sword to the right of this page, you can discount it completely.
:- Jim
Perphaps the gladius was derived from the short sword carried by the hoplites as a side arm.  Unfourtunately the name currently escapes me but the general dimensions are very similar.  Furthermore, as the greeks colonized both Iberia and Italy, I believe that it makes sense that the gladius was patterned of the early grecian sword pattern.  I suggest the romans adopted the pattern from the Celtiberians, who had aquired the pattern from the greek colonies in cletic territory(Marsailles).  The Celts were certainly among the best metalurgists of thier age, and it would by no means a stretch to accept that the Celts could have taken the Greek pattern and transmogrified it into the longsword like blade of the 3rd and 4th century BC.  Jim mentioned that the pattern was of course associated with the punic wars.  Naturally this makes sense because the Carthaginians were actively colonizing Celtiberia at the breaking out of hostilities.  To support this I cite Robert B. Asprey's work War in the Shadows wherein he mentions that Hannibal Barca's father died in a guerilla (pardon the pun) raid on a carthaginian collum.  This is all by way of supporting my theory that the gladius was patterned (indirectly) from the earlier (Pelopenisian War era) pattern.
-Gaius
Hi. I want do a contribution with these two links, can you read spanish? (Sorry, my english is very poor)
http://celtiberia.net/articulo.asp?id=1021&cadena=gladius
http://celtiberia.net/articulo.asp?id=1503&cadena=gladius
Summary and conclusion: Many advances happen since 1980, now we have archeological pieces of "gladius hispaniense" in celtiberic context and GH in roman context; the origin of the gladius is not the Falcata and not the celtics sword. Weaponry of La Téne I has been discovered in Cataluña with dates of later half of the IV century BC; then, the same weapons appear in archeological places of the "Meseta". The inhabitants took that weapons and progressively transformed it following their own tradition. At the half of the III century BC we have the final model of Gladius Hispaniensis, exactly equals to the roman gladius of the early II century.
That is: the gladius hispaniensis is a sword developed by the celtiberians between IV-III centuries BC from a type of La Téne I's sword.
-Fco
----------------------------
Indeed, the Carthaginians adopted the gladius hispaniensis after they settled there, using it against the Romans. When Scipio Africanus caught a number of Spanish swordsmiths he forced them to teach Roman swordsmiths how to make them. Unlike other swords up to that period the Spanish had unknowingly been somehow removing the useless lesser grade iron before forging the sword. One reference implies that they buried iron in the ground and left it. After some time (a couple of weeks maybe) they returned knowing that what was left was of high quality, one source stating it could be placed on top of the head and pulled down either side to touch the shoulders. When released it would spring back to shape, and do so after repeatedly testing in that way. Essentially, it seems to have broken new ground in sword technology, and they were much sought after by Roman soldiers.
I have no idea where the definitive statement in the article stating the gladius was hardened with charcoal comes from?! Sounds like a very suspicious factoid to me, and should be reworded drastically to make it clear that it is only a possibility. The spatha was also most certainly the descendant of the gladius, as the original gladius hispaniensis was almost twice as long as 2nd C Pompeii pattern examples, kept long for and adapted for cavalry use. Almost every expert will also tell you the Viking broadsword is a descendant of the spatha.
The article needs a serious rewrite, and also omits the later types all came from the original Hispaniensis.
-Jim.
I can pretty much guarantee the flex test described is mythical.  Not only will a piece of steel that shape not bend readily in the hands, that kind of arc would almost certainly deform a gladius totally.  They had nothing approaching spring steel.
Carburizing was done with charcoal, not coal, though the standard method was to pack the steel and charcoal dust into a ceramic pipe of clay and seal it before heating.  Using the face of the anvil would just cause surface inclusions of slag without any real carbon migration.
--Michael Z. Williamson
===Note on lack of origin===
Well folks I read through this part of the Wikipedian commentary and was totally struck by the lack of any specific source. I for one would like to see some here. We read a lot on the Internet about what Scipio did after the battle of Zama and it seems to be based on the conjectures of some 19th century writers but no one anywhere that I can find can cite an ancient author. Polybius says that they used the Spanish sword against the Carthaginians, but if they did that, how could they have adopted it after the 2nd Punic War, and if they won the war without it (neglecting Polybius) why on earth would they adopt it? And yet the sites all blithely describe how Scipio had these great swords made and distributed to the Roman army after the battle. Not in anything documentary I can find. Only in the words of enthusiasts. Anyone got anything? And, for the manufacture, I found a study refuting the notion that the swords were not steel or that the iron age knew no steel. But the method of carburization escapes me at the moment. "I think this" and "no, I think that" isn't going to do it here. What evidence is there of the method of carburization? Anyone got the source? Thanks.Dave 00:09, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Note on origin 

message: Well folks I read through this part of the Wikipedian commentary and was totally struck by the lack of any specific source. I for one would like to see some here. We read a lot on the Internet about what Scipio did after the battle of Zama and it seems to be based on the conjectures of some 19th century writers but no one anywhere that I can find can cite an ancient author. Polybius says that they used the Spanish sword against the Carthaginians, but if they did that, how could they have adopted it after the 2nd Punic War, and if they won the war without it (neglecting Polybius) why on earth would they adopt it? And yet the sites all blithely describe how Scipio had these great swords made and distributed to the Roman army after the battle. Not in anything documentary I can find. Only in the words of enthusiasts. Anyone got anything? And, for the manufacture, I found a study refuting the notion that the swords were not steel or that the iron age knew no steel. But the method of carburization escapes me at the moment. "I think this" and "no, I think that" isn't going to do it here. What evidence is there of the method of carburization? Anyone got the source? Thanks.Dave 00:09, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Note on lack of origin

message: I've added standard infoboxes and created captions for each of the gladius swordtypes. Please expand the with detailed text under each caption to get all info on the roman swords.
We also should consider having the spatha within the gladius sword series, as it is a development of those swords only longer and adapted for cavalry. Searching "spatha" must then enter "gladius".
:This is an ambitious idea. However, I do not think it is really a workable one, as the available information is unfortunately not as precise as you appear to require, at least as far as I can see.--M.J.Stanham 14:23, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that while the infoboxes are pretty, they are also unnecessary. They are also problematic in that the information currently present in them is apparently incorrect (a gladius can't really be classed as an arming sword, for example) and would also be redundant (the different types of gladii are still gladii, so a separate "type" section for each is not needed). Turning the first infobox into a generic "gladius" infobox could work though, but the rest should be removed.-- Avjn 20:36, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

text: No idea. These charts seem to me more of a hinderance than a help at the moment.--M.J.Stanham 01:24, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for cleaning up the page, Dave. I think we are going to have to get rid of these info boxes. They are generally innaccurate and aren't doing anything for the layout of the page. I'm not sure how to do the citations. The information for the first two can be found on Legio XX page, which references Volume 8 of the Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies. The citation for the latter might best come from Dr Mike Bishop's translation available at his homepage. --M.J.Stanham 02:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New captions and infoboxes 

message: Botteville has added the following to the opening paragraph:
Gladius' was originally a short sword, ... The word soon became the general word for "sword" among the Romans, replacing ensis and various Greek names for swords. (Footnote: See Smith's article on gladius in Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, page 577, which is online at ancientlibrary.com.) It even came to refer to the dagger, pugio.
I don't believe Smith is actually saying what you claim. First of all, he lists ensis as a poetic term ("by the Latin poets called ensis"), not as the original generic term (and certainly, by the time of Quintilian they could be considered absolute synonyms--10.1.11). 
Second of all, when he says "Gladius was sometimes used in a wide sense, so as to include Pugio (A. Gell. IX.13)" I believe what he is getting at is not the gladius (as used in English) vs. pugio (as used in English), but sword vs. dagger. I.e. he's not saying that gladius originally meant one type of sword, and came to be used for others, he's saying that gladius originally meant "a bladed weapon of a certain length" and ended up meaning "any bladed weapon." I'm not sure where he sees a pugio in that Aulus Gellius passage, but Gellius lived in the second century... not that late. If you want earlier examples, Curtius, who lived in the first century, said "Copidas vocabant gladios leviter curvatos, falcibus similes "They called their lightly curved, sickle-like swords (gladios) 'copides'" (surely this cannot mean gladii in the English sense of the term). 
:If we are going to accept that gladius was Latin for "the type of sword used by the Roman army" then what exactly do you think the generic word for sword was? Obviously there had to be one, and ensis cannot be it: that word is very rare in prose, and in Roman times swords were an everyday item.  --Iustinus 06:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm confused by this comment. The end seems to imply that you have more to say, but it looks like it's been about half an hour. Are you composing? Because I'd rather wait until you're done posting. --Iustinus 01:10, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the point is that the Romans used Gladius to describe both what we now divide into 'Spatha' and 'Gladius'. There was no such original distinction. So, for instance in Latin Gladius was used generically to describe both Semi Spatha and Spatha.--M.J.Stanham 01:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

text: It was even broader than that. See my Quintus Curtius quote above. --Iustinus 01:15, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Quite true, of course. I meant to direct Dave to Vegetius in particular, with whom he seems familiar. Josephus uses the Greek word for sword to describe both short and long blades, as well. He presumably has Gladius in mind as the translation.--M.J.Stanham 01:18, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

text: It is true that Vegetius does specifically count spathae and semispathae in the category of gladius (2.15: "gladios maiores, quos spathas uocant, et alios minores, quos semispathia nominant,"), but I didn't include that quote in my initial comment because Botteville isn't claiming that gladius can't refer to other swords at all, just that this was a later development. --Iustinus 01:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gladius as a general term 

message: Okay, I have tried to take everything into account for a revised introduction. It's not particularly good, but I think it is clearer than what was there before. I would like to incorporate more of what you are saying, Dave. I think alternate Latin words for sword (borrowed or not), such as Ensis, Xiphos, Spatha and Ferrum, should perhaps be presented and referenced here or perhaps in an expanded Etymology section. Of course, I agree that consensus is preferable to a revision war, I am open to suggestions. Dave, I know I should probably have a User Page! I will have to get round to doing something about that.--M.J.Stanham 02:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Mr. Stanham, wow, when you do a thing you do it. I note this is the day after Pearl Harbor day. I note your changes. I put a bunch of citation neededs on it. Don't let it worry you. It's my way of saying, quit making ME do all the work! We need chapter and verse here. Wherever possible I put in the online link too, and from a footnote rather than in the text. I looked at your English. Well, the English is coherent and sound. But, you didnt study too hard when you had punctuation and capitalization. Now, German capitalizes all the nouns, but English does not. If you were thrown off by the initial caps of links I suggest you look at my fixes (if you didn't already know that). For the intro I don't mind it being done that way. A single author might well change his mind and start over. You tossed out my references to Smith and Seyffert. I don't like to throw stuff away. I'll find a way to get those articles back in.
We seem to just be getting started here on this article. Whew, tough going. Eventually it will end up being a decent sourced article. But, we aren't getting there too fast. I might duck out for a while. Oh by the way I had the same thoughts about the etymology section. As for your user page, unless you go off in a huff you appear to have Wikipeditis like the rest of us, so you might as well put one in. Join the hordes.Dave 03:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "If you were thrown off by the initial caps of links I suggest you look at my fixes" --this reminds me, why are we doing all our links in the form sword? Isn't Wikipedia still case-insensitive for the first letter of article titles? --Iustinus 04:28, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Yep, I thought of that after I said it. Tsk tsk. After the article is more complete I can spend some time putting it in right.Dave 04:37, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not convinced by Dave's argument here, however I am pretty happy with how Mr. Stanham's revision came out. So let's lay aside our difference of opinion for now: I'd love to argue it some other time, as in fact this is a hobby horse of mine, but at the moment I could use the time it would take for more pressing matters ;) At any rate, I have added citations to the two ancient sorces (ha! I almost typed "sworces") that Stanham refered to. Hope you approve! The translations are my own, so if you disagree with them, or find them unsuitably awkward. --Iustinus 04:04, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Well I dare say that is more like it. A balanced article to me contains something for the unitiate or just initiated and also for the researcher looking for material. I would say this is just about right. If you don't want the detail you skip the note, and if you read the note and have some Greek you don't have to wait for the Perseus server or go running around looking for the Greek text you didn't happen to buy because it was 40 dollars or else you couldn't find it. I'm happy. And, I'm beginning to see the Romans didn't necessarily live in the categories we put them in. Prucrustean bed.Dave 04:37, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

text: You're right. I was tired.Dave 04:37, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I was planning to do more on the etymology especially trying to fill in the details of the origin and precedent. This stuff is often painstaking as we all can see. For the captions, of course if the text cannot be supplied they need to come out. I was hoping whoever put them in there would turn out to be a savant in sword manufacture and would give us the detail but if not something needs to be done with it.Dave 04:37, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, some sources imply the soldier at very least had a pugio and Vegetius tells us the darts were carried in the shield. But in deference to your interest and ability if you want to put some qualifiers in I won't object, but it seems to me they were standard. How could you go into battle without a knife? Suppose you tried a "chop" and broke your gladius? What then? Well, without the dagger you can just bare your canines. As for darts, well they've been found lying around in great numbers at battle sites. Imagine the effect of a shower of darts on the enemy front rank just before closing.Dave 04:37, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revised Introduction 

message: Perhaps after this we might address the spatha article? --M.J.Stanham 14:15, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds great now that there is a thing going here. This gladius article needs to be squared away though. I will put that next on my list even though I promised I would fix Vidrus. With spatha I suspect we are going to get deeper back into antiquity.Dave 04:37, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm indifferent to the infoboxes, but my impression is certainliy that more people consider them problematic than helpful. --Iustinus 15:44, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm a graphic person myself, which is why I put the pic up top after you took it down. They don't seem to say very much that is true. Is that a challenge or a nuisance? For the recreated sword, that was a nice point you made on the caption. Ideally we should find a pic or two of some ancient gladii, and the pic need not be quite so large.Dave 04:37, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Tsk tsk. Think about it - more people are going to read this article here than any article in any professional journal. If we are going to do something here the public deserves our best effort. This is high quality time for them. If we define retrieval rate to be a certain number of facts divided by the time required to obtain them you will see that this is the highest retrieval rate, the densest return for the time, of any other method available to them. The audience is the biggest and most diverse. I can do more with Wikipedia and Google than I ever could running around to class and library. By the third class I was too tired to keep my eyes open. The Internet in general and this tool in specific are a quantum leap in civilization, specifically in mass communication and access to knowledge. There are about 1.5 mil articles here and most are of use to someone. So, Wikipedia deserves to be taken seriously. it is only limited by our limits. If you want to become an expert only study with experts in an environment fostering expertise will do. Hats off to you, my dear professors. But for mass education this tool has no peer. Picture the expert archaeologist, the prima donna, who bends his genius on solving the leading historical questions, and solves them, but never publishes because he has no time, and never divulges because he has no patience or will not give the knowledge to his rivals, whom he hates, and shares nothing with his students because he is afraid they will steal his ideas and outshine him. He dies. His wife burns his notes. What good is that? He destroyed the site others could have investigated. His talent was of no use and therefore was not talent. History rested in the hands of an idiot with a genius IQ and it all slipped away into the great silent murk.Dave 02:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

text: They ask a lot. I got rid the three boxes. Too many boxes. General answers are better I think. The boxes are for modern weapons. I suppose the sword researcher would want to have fun going around measuring swords and talking to experts for his new book. We can only go as far someone else has gone. I'm only responding, really, to the request for sources. There's a lot available and as you know it prevents wild conjecture and stereotypes; let us say, unbalanced views. Maybe someone will go on from this article to research Roman swords and publish a great new reference for the coffee table, hey? Ciao.Dave 01:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spatha and Gladius 

message: We currently have the Celtic root for sword listed as *kladyos, which agrees with the Online Etymological Dictionary citation we have listed. The online Pokorny citation gives *kladi¸os -- I don't know what the ¸ is meant to represent, perhaps I should check this in a print copy. The OED s.v. glaive lists the Celtic root as *cladivo-. Now, this last form make a lot more sense to me: the v presumably represents [w], which could easily be dropped in a borrowing, and yet still account plausibly for the [v] (or similar sound) seen in Welsh and Goidelic. Of course the article as written explains the [v] as a Brythionic innovation that was borrowed into Old Irish. I don't have anywhere near the knowledge of Celtic etymology to figure this out, but I thought I should mention it. --Iustinus 04:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: About "¸", The UTF-8 version of the page gives *kladi̯os with i-with-breve-below, which is pretty unambiguously identical to *kladyos (Pokorny writing in German and thus having reason not to use *y and *w like Americans do).  —Muke Tever talk 07:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oooooooh! I should have figured that out. Thanks as always, Muke. --Iustinus 07:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Now that I reread that page in UTF-8, this issue becomes a lot clearer: "cymr. cleddyf `Schwert', bret. klézé `Schwert, Klinge' (cleddyf diss. aus *cleðyð, kelt. *kladi̯os), ir. claideb ist Lw. aus dem Cymr., lat. gladius aus dem Kelt.;" so he reconstructs Protoceltic *kladyos > Lat. gladius, Bret. klézé, and pre-Welsh *cleðyð > Welsh cleddyf > OIr claideb (which in turn gives the modern Irish/Scottish reflexes). But he doesn't explain the Pre-Welsh -yð. Anyone here understand where that comes from? --Iustinus 15:44, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm watching this side activity with interest. I tried to indicate in the note that the silence of American Heritage Dictionary, which happens to be Calvert Watkins, is a pretty good indicator that there are problems with the classic derivation. Watkins is very thorough. He likes to see reflexes that get to be so by following the rules characteristic of the language and I do believe he is a Celtic scholar. He does not always agree with Pokorny. But I would just bet the issues have come up and been discussed in the linguistics journals. Further search might turn something up. I would like to remind you that Wiki is not for original research but even if you did it I suspect you might be going over a trodden path again. Wiki gets you started. It seems to have have gotten you started. If you find an article, throw it in. Somebody will appreciate it.Dave 05:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Celtic root 

message: "Contrary to common belief, the gladius was not used by gladiators, who used a version with a shorter blade (30 cm – 35 cm/12 in. – 14 in. long)."
:This is given without a source. It's just too incredible so I'm removing it for the time. For one thing, if the gladius was not used by gladiators, why were they called gladiators? I think the key is the realization that we live in 4 dimensions not 3. Even if you found a reference it must apply to one small length of time in the total life line of gladiatorial displays. I don't think you have one, though. If you do a google search all you can get are swords of vengeance and gladiator swords for sale and all such hoak as that. If you want to buy a gladiator sword, go ahead, only 300 dollars. If you want I can sell you a bridge along with some genuine Indian artifacts that were under it. None of the reference works I have talk about any special gladiator sword. So I am putting in some more solid stuff from Michael Grant.Dave 15:35, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The gladius of the gladiator

message: I have one already, extensive but not complete. Problems: (1) the list itself does not meet wikipedia source standards (no regular publication, etc.) though the individual entries can (they cite their own sources). (2) as new entries are added, any citation of the list as a whole would fall apart. Jacob Haller 21:04, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Can we add a list of Gladii?

message: Can we see a source for the claim that these coats of arms are depicting gladii?  The Polish one in particular looks more like a pair of spatha or perhaps transitional period arming swords, and I question why coats of arms developed in Suisse, Belarus and Poland at a later period would depict ancient Roman swords when gladii were not widely used there.  It's a bit of a stretch. 71.204.204.249 13:36, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Symbolism section 

message: I have discovered large scale and improper changing of the AD/BC time references in articles.  This article is a case in point:  The original dating methodology used by various editors was the AD/BC format.  Later editors came in and changed this format to the "politically correct" CE/BCE format.  This change from AD/BC to CE/BCE is improper for a number of reasons:  1)  Wiki policy expressly prohibits these types of changes without adequate jusitification; and, 2) The AD/BC format is more culturally appropriate since the article deals with Roman historical concepts and the AD/BC format is a latin derivative.  Should this change back to AD/BC be controversial, I invite a conversation on the topic. Jpetersen46321 18:33, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I prefer the CE/BCE dating system for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I believe it better adheres to WP:NPOV as it is religiously neutral. Second, the argument that the Gladius article should use the AD/BC format because of its latin origins is a poor one. The AD/BC system wasn't even invented until centuries after the Gladius ceased to be used and has its origins in the medieval Christian church rather than any Roman government. Showers (talk) 18:42, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: AD/BC vs. CE/BCE controversy

message: This is not a joke.  The article should mention that Gladius was Roman slang for schlong. Haha, that's funny.  But seriously, yeah.  76.191.219.24 (talk) 07:21, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gladius=Penis 

message: There is no mention of how thick the blade was.
Also, while the article mentions a rhomboidal (diamond shaped) or channeled cross section, there is no source for this claim and pics on the web show ancient gladii that might have been flat.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.165.49.181 (talk) 22:37, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Blade thickness and cross section 

message: As I pointed years ago in this thread, recent archeological findings favour the Celtiberian origen of the sword. The findings of early 2th century BC Roman gladius clearly shows that they are copies of Celtiberian swords, instead of Gallic or other types. Celtiberians developed the weapon from La Téne I models, adaptating the sword to older Celtiberian techniques and types around the 4-3th centuries BC. Here is a proffesional account of the subject http://www.ffil.uam.es/equus/warmas/online/Quesada%20gladius%20ROMEC%20rd.pdf
--Bentaguayre (talk) 19:01, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Celtiberian origen 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Gladius. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20020830133544/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu:80/etcbin/toccer-new2?data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&division=div2&id=Liv2His.sgm&images=images/modeng&part=51&tag=public to http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=Liv2His.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=51&division=div2
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070610074342/http://www.ancienthistory.ugent.be/history/en/Verboven_working_paper_Good_for_business.pdf to http://www.ffil.uam.es/equus/warmas/online/Quesada%20gladius%20ROMEC%20rd.pdf
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070610074342/http://www.ancienthistory.ugent.be/history/en/Verboven_working_paper_Good_for_business.pdf to http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/isijinternational/45/9/1358/_pdf
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20061004213845/http://www.ancientlibrary.com:80/seyffert/0259.html to http://www.ancientlibrary.com/seyffert/0259.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20061025183906/http://www.museodelarmablanca.com:80/gladius.htm to http://www.museodelarmablanca.com/gladius.htm
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070610074342/http://www.ancienthistory.ugent.be/history/en/Verboven_working_paper_Good_for_business.pdf to http://www.ancienthistory.ugent.be/history/en/Verboven_working_paper_Good_for_business.pdf
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thread_title:  External links modified 

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I have just added archive links to  on Gladius. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
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*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20151016095621/http://www.legio-ix-hispana.org/gladdraw.html to http://www.legio-ix-hispana.org/gladdraw.html
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thread_title:  External links modified 

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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061004213845/http://www.ancientlibrary.com/seyffert/0259.html to http://www.ancientlibrary.com/seyffert/0259.html
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