Spatha

The spatha apparently replaced the gladius in the front ranks, giving the infantry more reach when thrusting.

[2] The Greek word σπάθη was used in the middle archaic period for various types of Iron Age swords.

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".

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.

[8] 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.

[9] Spatha appears, first in Pliny and then in Seneca, with different meanings: a spatula, a metal-working implement, a palm-leaf and so on.

[11] 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.

Objects were deliberately broken and thrown into the bogs in the belief that they could go with a deceased chief on his voyage to a better place.

[13] When Germanic tribes began to invade the Roman Empire during the 3rd and 4th centuries they would come into contact with the spatha.

[7] Surviving examples of these Germanic Iron Age swords have blades measuring between 71 and 81 cm (28 and 32 in) in length and 43 to 61 mm (1+3⁄4 to 2+3⁄8 in) in width.

These single-handed weapons of war sport a tang 10 to 13 cm (4 to 5 in) long and have very little taper in their blades.

[citation needed] While the pattern of hilt and blade design of this type might readily be called a "Viking sword", to do so would be to neglect the widespread popularity it enjoyed.

During Norman times, the blade's length increased by around 10 cm (4 in), and the hilt changed significantly.

The main development was the growth of the front handguard into a full cross-guard, and the reduction of the typical Viking Age lobated pommel into simpler brazil nut or disc shapes.