Yea, my Gladius is finished!

F

FullerH

Joined
Nov 25, 1998
Messages
12,632
I just heard from Erik at Phoenix Metalworks. My gladius if finished and all I need to do is to send him the remaining money that I owe him. Please see the specifications.

Some specs on the sword: it weighs 2.2 lb., the point of balance is 5" from the guard, the point of percussion is 16" from the guard. The blade length is 25", the overall length is 32-7/8", the blade width is 2-1/8" the point taper starts 7-1/2" from the point. The guard and pommel are black walnut and the grip is imitation ivory. The guard has the recessed plate with a 1/16" tall raised border, I left it protruding a tiny bit from the surface of the wood to make it more visible. I will send a picture with the imitation ivory grip and the bone grip side by side, I stabilized the bone by soaking it in polyurethane but the bone itself had some cracks starting to form from rough handling during processing so I opted for the imitation Ivory, but it is your choice.

The scabbard weighs about 3 lb., because of the cut grooves I had to use rather heavy bronze stock. It has the 2 carrying rings as apposed to 4 as per your request, and the tip is rounded to a point rather than straight. The inner diameter of the rings is 1". The scabbard body is tulip poplar covered in black leather
 
VERY cool!
As soon as you get it in your hands, PLEASE let's get some pictures up.
I'm excited for you and I can't wait to see it!
:D
 
Cool! I want to see pics too! Now some of those emails begin to be a little more clear!
 
Erik has sent me three pictures of the sword by email. Is there anyone out there who will help me get them posted?
 
Hey Hugh!

My connection is really slow and crappy, so I don't know if I'll be able to do it or not. Email them to me though, I'll give it a try.

(Now go to the Political Forum and respond to my comments in the Constitution thread!)
LOL
:D
 
And, finally:
(for some reason, it won't let me attach the last file, which is just a picture od the hilt from the side view.)
 
Nice! That is one classy looking sheath, too. The sword that won an empire...in a very real sense. There's some pretty interesting history behind a piece like the gladius; I'm sure you will enjoy owning such a fine piece of work.
 
The sword is 32 7/8" overall with a 25" x 2 1/8" blade. The taper starts at 7 1/2" back from the tip. The point of balance is 5" from the guard and the point of percussion (sweet spot) is 16" from the guard.

The guard and pommel are of black walnut and the grip is Ivory Micarta. He tried bone, but it cracked, and fake ivory was my next choice. The scabbard is ash wood covered with leather with the seams at the sides. These are covered with the bronze channels. The bronze is quite heavy as a result of my desire to have lines cut into it (if you look carefully, you can see them). The weight of the sword is 2.2 lbs. and the scabbard is about 3 lbs. I hope that Triton will be able to make a baldric for this that I can also change over to my Roman Riding Sword when it comes.

One very interesting part is the pommel. It is trilobate, like the Viking swords, but I got the design from the tombstone of the Centurion Minucius from the 1st Century BCE, found in Padova, in Northern Italy. We have provenance! The pommel appears to be a "fica", now a symbol that is, to Mediterranean peoples, very much like "the finger" is to us, but back then it was a good luck charm. The pagan Romans were not that far from their pastoral roots and used the phallus and its female equivalent as good luck charms. They are seen carved, painted, and charcoaled all over Roman ruins such as Hadrian's Wall and Pompeii. The fica is the female equivalent of the phallus. So the Centurion Minucius was carrying a good luck charm into battle with his sword! It appears that it was only after the coming of Christianity as a popular religion that the fica assumed its current status.
 
Originally posted by FullerH
The sword is 32 7/8" overall with a 25" x 2 1/8" blade. The taper starts at 7 1/2" back from the tip. The point of balance is 5" from the guard and the point of percussion (sweet spot) is 16" from the guard.
Click to expand...


Wow! What a "hewer and cleaver!"

My eyebrows shot up when I read the point of balance (hey, I'm a long blade guy!) but then I remembered we're talking about a gladius here. VERY impressive!

I'm willing to bet that the sweet spot is pretty generous too.


One very interesting part is the pommel. It is trilobate, like the Viking swords, but I got the design from the tombstone of the Centurion Minucius...
Click to expand...

I'm glad you explained that. My first thought when I saw the pic was "Why does it have a Viking hilt?" :confused:

Excellent story behind it though, and of course...
If you've got provenance, it's COOL!!!
:D

Congratulations on your new blade Hugh, now quit babying it and go hack something suitable.
Take pics, return here, post them!
(please!)
 
For those who wish to verify my research, there is a photograph of the tombstone of Minucius in The Making of the Roman Army: From Republic to Empire, by Lawrence Keppie, and a drawing of the tombstone in Roman Military Equipments From the Punic Wars to the End of the Empire, by Michael Bishop and J.C.N. Coulston, now out of print, but due out in a new, updated, version within a couple of years, according to Bishop.(Hooray!!!) For the blade, please see this paragraph, excerpted from a post by Mike Bishop in a thread captioned "Origin of the Gladius Hispaniensis" over on SwordForums, in the Ancient Arms Forum.

"Essential reading for anybody interested in the Republican period is volume 8 of the *Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies* (full contents listed at www.jrmes.org), which includes an article by F. Quesada Sanz entitled 'Gladius Hispaniensis: an archaeological view from Iberia'; this should be balanced against Peter Connolly's offering 'Pilum, gladius and pugio in the Late Republic'."

I contacted the American publishers and they agreed to send me a copy of the Connolly article for $15 rather than the $45 for the entire book. There is a plethora of information in it and a whole slew of swords, including the Mouries, France, find, upon which my blade is based.
 
Definitely a well researched piece. Makes a fellow history buff proud :) The sheath alone is a work of art. Let us know how it performs if you try it out.
 
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