Rhomphaia

After encountering the falx in Dacia, the Romans added extra reinforcing bars to their helmets to protect against the powerful blows of this weapon.

Rhomphaia was first a "spear", later a "sword" (Plutarch: Life of Aemilius Paulus 18; Eustathius, on Iliad verse VI 166; Hesychius; also Luke 2:35 and the Revelation of John of Patmos, several times.).

In Latin, it has the forms: W. Tomaschek listed the Bulgarian roféja, rufja "thunderbolt" and the Albanian rrufeja as derivatives of that word.

A weapon called rhomphaia was also mentioned in Michael Psellos' Chronographia where he describes it as a "one-edged sword of heavy iron which they [the palace guards at Constantinople] carry suspended from the right shoulder".

[6] However, Niketas Choniates describes the bodyguards of the emperor Andronikos I Komnenos as removing "the two-edged swords from their shoulders".