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The spatha was a type of straight and long sword, measuring between , with a handle length of between , in use in the territory of the Roman Empire during the 1st to 6th centuries AD. Later swords, from the 7th to 10th centuries, like the , are recognizable derivatives and sometimes subsumed under the term spatha.
The Roman spatha was used in war and in fights. The spatha of literature appears in the Roman Empire in the 1st century AD as a weapon used by presumably Celtic peoples and gradually became a standard heavy infantry weapon by the 3rd century AD, relegating the gladius to use as a light infantry weapon. The spatha apparently replaced the gladius in the front ranks, giving the infantry more reach when thrusting. While the infantry version had a long point, versions carried by the Roman cavalry had a rounded tip that prevented accidental stabbing of the cavalryman's own foot or horse.
Archaeologically many instances of the spatha have been found in Britain and Germany. It was used extensively by Germanic warriors. It is unclear whether it came from the gladius or the longer Celtic swords, or whether it served as a model for the various and Viking swords of Europe. The spatha remained popular throughout the Migration Period. It evolved into the knightly sword of the High Middle Ages by the 12th century.
The Greek word σπάθη was used in the middle Archaic Greece for various types of Iron Age swords. The word does not appear in Homeric Greek, but it is mentioned in the works of Alcaeus of Mytilene (sixth century BC)"Χαλκίδικαι σπάθαι" ( Chalcidian spathai), Alcaeus, 15.6 and Theophrastus (fourth century BC).Theophrastus, Characters, 25.4, original Greek text, on Perseus Digital Library
It is likely that spatha is the romanization of the Doric Greek word σπάθα ( spáthā).recorded in the accusative plural, as σπάθας ( spáthās). AP6.288 (Leon.) LSJ, s.v. "σπάθη". The word survives in Modern Greek as σπάθη]] and σπαθί]]. The Latin word became the French épée, Catalan and Occitan espasa, Portuguese and Spanish espada, Italian spada, Romanian spadă and Albanian shpata, all meaning "sword". The English word spatula comes from Latin spat( h) ula, the diminutive of spatha. English spade, from Old English spadu or spædu, is the Germanic cognate, derived from a Common Germanic *spadō, ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European stem *sph2-dh-.
The earlier gladius sword was gradually replaced by the spatha from the late 2nd to the 3rd century AD. From the early 3rd century, legionaries and cavalrymen began to wear their swords on the left side, perhaps because the scutum had been abandoned and the spatha had replaced the gladius.Lesley Adkins, Roy A. Adkins, Handbook to life in ancient Rome, Oxford University Press, 1998 , p. 87.
In the imperial period, the Romans adopted the original Greek term, spáthē (σπάθη), as spatha, which still carried the general meaning of any object considered long and flat.An online version of "Middle Liddell" is offered at http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/, referring to the middle of three sizes in which the most commonly used lexicon by Liddell & Scott has been published. The unabridged is preferable for research, as it lists all the uses in ancient Greek of the word. Spatha appears, first in Pliny and then in Seneca, with different meanings: a spatula, a metal-working implement, a palm-leaf and so on.An interactive Latin dictionary, Lewis & Short, based on Andrews, is given at www.perseus.com, but any good printed Latin dictionary also states the various uses and sources of spatha. There is no hint of any native Roman sword called a spatha.
Referring to an actual sword, the term first appears in the pages of Tacitus with reference to an incident of the Principate.Annales 12.35. The British king, Caratacus, having rebelled, found himself trapped on a rocky hill, so that if he turned one way he encountered the gladii of the legionaries, and if the other, the spathae of the auxiliaries. There is no indication in Tacitus that they were cavalry.
In 2023, three spathae—two of the Pompeii type and one possibly of the Fontillet type—were discovered stashed alongside other weapons in the Cave of the Swords near Ein Gedi in Israel's Judaean Desert. These swords were likely hidden by Jewish rebels who had taken them as booty, possibly for their own use, during the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE).
The next mention of spathae is in the 5th century, by Vegetius, now as a weapon carried by infantry.
The spatha remained in use in the Byzantine Empire and its Byzantine army. In the Byzantine court, spatharios (σπαθάριος), or "bearer of the spatha", was a mid-level court title. Other variants deriving from it were protospatharios, spatharokandidatos and spatharokoubikoularios, the latter reserved for eunuchs. One of the more famous spatharokandidatoi was Harald Hardrada.Kekaumenos, Strategikon, "Oration of Admonition to an Emperor", para. 81
A cache of 90 swords was found at Nydam Mose in Denmark in 1858. They were in the form of the spatha and therefore have been classified as "Roman swords". They are dated to the 3rd to 4th centuries. Many connect the Nydam cache with the sword of Beowulf, who was supposed to be a contemporary.A professional site may be found at das Nydam Moor . German is required but a good picture of a sword is shown. Another site is to be found at Genealogies, Maps, Glossary & Pictorial Guide to Beowulf. It presents the ancient Germanic sword vocabulary and shows a picture of a Nydam spatha but does not connect it to a specific name.
During Norman England, the blade's length increased by around , and the hilt changed significantly. Instead of the Brazil-nut pommel, a thick disc-shaped pommel was attached "on-edge" to the bottom of the iron hilt. In addition the upper guard grew substantially from the near-absent design predating it. Also, the blades tended to taper slightly less than those found in the time of the Vikings.
Jan Petersen, in De Norske Vikingsverd ( The Norwegian Viking Swords, 1919), introduced the most widely used classification of swords of the Viking Age, describing 26 types labelled A–Z. In 1927, R. E. M. Wheeler condensed Petersen's typology into a simplified typology of nine groups, numbered I–IX.
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