slain; and he persuaded four hundred senators and six hundred knights, some of unbroken fortunes and unblemished fame, to fight in the arena. He espoused the cause of the Thraces or Parmularians, and often joined in the popular demonstrations in favour of the Prasine or 'green faction,' without, however, compromising his dignity or doing injustice. In his later and crueller days,' hearing the master of a family of gladiators say that a Thrax was a match for a Mirmillo, but not so for the exhibitor of the games, he had him dragged from the benches into the arena and exposed to the dogs, with this label, 'A Parmularian guilty of speaking blasphemy.' And, as 'Mero' scandalised the world by his passion for singing and harping, so Commodus degraded himself by amateur gladiatorship. He was cunning of fence, but in the most cowardly way. A powerful man and a practised gymnast, he wore impenetrable armour and fought with a heavy Sword, whereas his antagonists were allowed only blades of tin and lead. Even the humane Trajan exhibited after his victories some ten thousand Dacian monomachists.' The militarism of the Romans, however, made them familiar with butchery. Thus Tacitus says: 'The Germans gratified us with the spectacle of a battle in which above sixty thousand men were slain.' This 'gladiatorial show' took place near the canal of Drusus, where the Roman guard on the Rhine commanded a view of the other shore.

3

The gladiators used both forms of Swords, the straight two-edged blade and the curved. The Dimacheri carried, as the name denotes, two weapons: these may have been either two Swords of the same size, as carried by the Japanese, or possibly Sword and dagger, a practice long preserved on the shores of the Mediterranean. The same may be said of the duos gladios borne by the Gaul whom Torquatus slew. The Hoplomachi, armed cap-a-pie, must also have been Swordsmen. The Mirmillo was weaponed with a curved blade, cutting inside ('gladio incurvo et falcato'): in Montfaucon, he carries a long convex shield and a Sica or short-Sword. Opposed to the Mirmillo was the Retiarius, armed with net and trident: Cortez found net-soldiers in Mexico, as was natural to fishermen. Winckelmann shows a fight between the two: Retiarius has netted his fish and

6

man (Samurai) wore sword and dagger. The blades used to be of equal length. Of the Japanese sword I shall treat in Part II.

• Copied by Smith (Dict. of Ant. p. 456) from Winckelmann (Monumenta Inedita, Pl. 197): the latter, by the by, was murdered at Trieste.

7 The word seems to be a congener of Sahs, Sax, or Seax, the weapon supposed to have named the Saxons. It was either straight or curved, the main object being to fit it closely to the body or under the armpits. Hence it was a favourite with the Sicarius (Ital. sicario), the Assassin. Gregory of Tours has (ix. 19) Caput sicharii siccâ dividit.' A fanciful derivation of Sicily is from sica, because Cronos threw one away at Drepanum. From the diminutive form Sicula and Silicicula comes the English 'sickle.'

proceeds to use the fuscina or tridens, while a toga'd Lanista, rod in hand, stands behind him and points out where to strike.

2

The Samnites were distinguished by the oblong tribal scutum and the leafshaped Greek Sword: so says the Comte de Caylus; but on the monument erected by Caracalla to Bato, the weapon is straight up and down. The Thræces or Threces (Thracians proper) had round shields, and instead of the huge Swords noted by Livy, the short knife called by Juvenal falx supina.3 The Thracian's Sword closely resembles that used in the Isle of Cos. Winckelmann' gives a combat between two Thracians, each backed up by his Lanista. We find also a naked Gladiator, with Sword and shield, fighting another in breast-belt, apron (subligaculum), and boots, with a shield and a three-thonged flagellum or scourge.

The Gladiators were an order distinct from the Bestiarii (Onpioμáxoi), who fought against wild beasts; these were exhibited in the Forum, those in the Circus. Again, Bestiarii, who can boast that St. Paul once belonged to them, must not be confounded with the criminals thrown ad leones, without means of defence, like Mentor, Androclus, and early Christian communists. The beastfighters had their schola bestiarum or bestiariorum where they practised weapons, and they received auctoramentum or pay. The arms were various: mostly they are shown with a Sword in one hand, a veil in the other, and the left leg protected by greaves. Under Divus Cæsar criminals for the first time encountered wild beasts with silver weapons. The modern survival is the Spanish bull-fight. Gladiatorism lasted in England after a fashion till the days of Addison; amongst professional Swordsmen, the highest surviving name is that of

the great Figg, by the prize-fighting swains

The monarch acknowledged of Mary'bone plains."

To conclude this discursus on gladiatorism. Most popular sports are cruel, but we must not confound, as is often done, cruelty with brutality. The former may accompany greatness of intellect, the latter is the characteristic of debasement. Every nation is disposed to 'fie-fie' its neighbour's favourite diversion. The English fox-hunter and pigeon-shooter are severe upon bull-fighting and cock

This hide-shield, which supplanted the clypeus or clipeus, the large round article of osier-work, was also Sabine.

2 Petronius Arbiter, chap. i. 7.

Falx is properly a large pruning knife, plain or toothed, with a coulter or bill projecting from the back of the curved head. Besides this, there are many forms; one is a simple curve; another is a leaf-shaped blade with an inner hook, while a third bears, besides the spike, a crescent on the back. 'Falx' is the origin of our 'falchion,' an Italian augmentative form, or perhaps the Spanish facon. Cæsar (Comm. iii. 14) speaks of falces præacute. Loc. cit., copied by Smith.

• Mentor is mentioned by Pliny (viii. 21). The

tale of Androclus is well known; he was pardoned, and presented with his friend the lion, whom he used to lead about Rome, doubtless collecting many

coppers.

He is called by Captain Godfrey the Atlas of the sword,' and Hogarth immortalised this valiant 'rough' in the Rake's Progress and Southwark Fair.

It is regretable to see this unmanly and ignoble 'sport' spreading abroad: there was pigeon-shooting at Venice during the Geographical Carnival, alias Congress, of September 1881. All honour to the English Princes who are discountenancing the butchery at home. Fox-hunting is another thing; the chief good done by it seems to be the circulation of about a million of morey per annum.

fighting the classical and Oriental pastime preserved in Spain and in Spanish South America.' The boxer, who imitates, at a humble distance, the Cestus-play of the Greeks and Romans, looks scandalised at la boxe Française, with its garnishing of savate; and at the Brazilian capoeira, who butts with his woolly head. And so vice versa. Absence or presence of fair play should, methinks, condemn or justify all the various forms of sport which are not mere or pure barbarities. And, applying this test, we shall not harsh judge the gladiatorial games of Rome.

I now proceed to describe the Sword amongst the Romans, a simpler subject than in Greece.

As the so-termed founding of Rome took place during the early Iron Age of Southern Europe, it is probable that the citizens, like their predecessors the Etruscans, originally made their blades of copper and bronze, the leaf-shape being borrowed from the Greeks, as we see it retained by the gladiators. The material would last into the Age of Steel, but even in her early years Rome must have preferred the harder metal. Pliny expressly tells us that Porsena, after his shortlived conquest, prohibited the future masters of the world from using iron except in agriculture; it was hardly safe to handle a stylus. Polybius notes that in his day bronze was entirely restricted to defensive armour-helmets, breast-plates, and greaves. All offensive weapons, swords and spears, were either made of, or tipped with, steel. To this superiority of material we may attribute the Roman successes in the second Punic war (B.C. 218-201), and their conquest of the gallant Gauls, when their foes could oppose nothing better than bronze. They had reason to call a Sword ferrum.2

The Romans called the Sword Ensis, Gladius, and Spatha. The two former are used as synonyms by Quinctilian,3 but the first presently became poetical. The derivations are eminently unsatisfactory. Voss would find Ensis in yXOS, hasta; Sanskritists in Asi, a Sword, the Zend Anh. Gladius is popularly drawn a clade ferenda, quasi cladius (Varro and Littleton); Voss prefers xλádov (ramus), a young branch, the earliest Sword: to others it appears a congener of the Keltic Clad, the destroyer. Of the derivation of Spatha' I have already treated: Suetonius makes it equivalent to Machaira; but this word and its diminutive Machærium are loosely used.

The Roman Sword was, like their other weapons, longer and larger, heavier and more formidable than that of the Greeks." The earliest form, the 'hero's arm' of Virgil and Livy, was a short single-edged cutting weapon of bronze, also called the 'Gallic Sword,' because long preserved by that people. It is shown in the arm of

I have described cockfighting in the Canary Islands (To the Gold Coast for Gold, i., chap. 9). The celebrated story of Themistocles and the gamecocks made the pastime classical. Alexander the Great is said to have crucified a tax-gatherer at Alexandria who killed and ate a famous fighting-cock. Verdict, S. H. R.

2 So Mexin and the O. Germ. Ask (an ash-tree)

:

signify a bow there are many instances of such nomenclature.

3 Quinctilian, Inst. Orat. xii. 11. Marchionni (p. 123) makes the Gladius short and broad for infantry, and the Ensis long and broad for cavalry, in fact, synonymous with Spatha. This view is not unusual.

In Claud. cap. 15.
Florus, ii. 17.

the Roman Auxiliary (fig. 276). Another very early, if not the earliest, shape was the leaf, which varied in length from nineteen inches (the blade found at Mayence) to twenty-six inches (the Bingen find). The latter is peculiar; the hilt is ornamented with bronze, and it has a cross-guard. Upon another blade (fig. 277), of which a cast is in the Artillery Museum, Paris, appears the armourer's mark, Sabini (opus).

The third form, which is most generally identified with the Roman soldier, greatly resembles that which was introduced into the French army by, not without financial benefit to, Marshal Soult. The average length may be assumed at twenty-two inches, with a grip of six inches and a cross-bar (not always present)

four inches and a half long and four lines thick. Some specimens show a distinct hilt-plate (fig. 274, 2). A mid-rib ran along the blade, which was either straight or slightly narrowing, and it ended in the bevelled point (langue de carpe). This thick heavy blade, used cæsim et punctim, was most efficient for hand-to-hand work, and the Roman soon mastered the truth, unknown to most Orientals, that the cut wounds and the thrust kills.' Accordingly they soon learned to despise the old Sword,

This blade greatly resembles one found in Ostirbotten, Finland, except that the latter preserves the tang. Trans. Congress of Bologna of 1871, p. 428. The point was called cuspis, which never applies to the mucro, acies, or edge. 'Differt a mucrone quæ est acies gladii,' says Facciolati.

3 See chap. vii. In Hugues de Bançoi's Battle of Benevento we read: Le Roy Charles' (brother of

St. Louis, and then fighting to take. Sicily from Manfred)... 'crioit de sa bouche Royale à ses Chevaliers de serrer les ennemis, leur disant, Frappez de la pointe, Frappez de la pointe, soldats de Jésus Christ. Et il ne faut pas s'en étonner, car ce Prince habile avait lu dans le Livre de l'Art Militaire que les nobles Romains n'avoient pas imaginé de meilleure manière de combattre que de percer les ennemis avec la pointe de l'épée.'

short and crooked. The national weapon must have been used by Æmilius at the Battle of Telamon (B.C. 225), for Polybius notes that the Roman blade could not only deliver thrust but give the cut with good effect.

Shortly after that fight the Romans, during their earliest invasions of the Spanish Peninsula (B.C. 219), intended to subvert Carthaginian rule, adopted the Gladius Hispanus, including the pugio (fig. 280); and the change from bronze to steel became universal after the battle of Cannæ. The superior material aided them not a little in conquering their obstinate rivals. The Roman Proconsul M. Fulvius captured (B.C. 192) Toledo (Twλntov), Toletum, 'a small city, but strong in position; and the superior temper of the steel, attributed with truth, I believe, to the Tagus-water, recommended it to the conquerors. A later conquest of the Regnum Noricum (Styria, B.C. 16) gave them mines of equal excellence. From Pliny and Diodorus Siculus we know perfectly how the Celtiberians pre

2

3

a

FIG. 278.-SWORD AND VAGINA (Sheath).

FIG. 279.-DITTO.

FIG. 280.-THE PUGIO.

pared their iron ores. Of this material was made the Spatha or Iberian blade, a name adopted under the Empire, especially under Hadrian (A.D. 117–138). Long, two-edged, and heavier than the short Xiphos-Gladius, it added fresh force to the impetus gladiorum.

In Cicero's time the Sword must have been of full length to explain the joke against his son-in-law; and Macrobius expressly tells us that Lentulus was wearing a blade which justified the 'chaff.' During the days of Theodosius (A.D. 378394), the straight and strong weapon of Hadrian's time again shortened till it was

1 Livy, xxxv. 12. According to Spanish tradition, Toletum (probably a Carthaginian-Punic word) was founded B.C. 540 by Hebrews, who called it Toledoth, in Arab. Tawallud, the 'mother of cities.'

2 Properly the South-Danube country from the Wienerwald to the Inn. The great seat of the iron works was at Lauriacum (Lorch, near Enns). After B.C. 16 the province was ruled by a Procurator. * See chap. vi.

In Tonini's Rimini avanti l' era volgare (p. 31) we read that the Spatha-blade 'Come ognuno sa, presso i Greci quanto presso i Latini, est genus gladii latioris; onde Isidoro nelle Origini (xviii. cap. 6) ha che alcuni spatham latine autumant, eo quod spatiosa sit, id est lata et ampla.' But this is a dictionary derivation. In chap. viii. I have traced it back to the Egyptian Stet, and in chap. xiii. I shall show that it is the straight broadsword as used by the Kelts.