Hand-Forged Pompeii Gladius Sword- Custom Forge

The blade profile, which is how all four Roman patterns are told apart. Run them in order and the development is clear. The Hispaniensis, in use from around 200 BC, is the longest of the four, with a pronounced waist in the middle of the blade and a long tapering point. The Mainz, from around 20 BC, keeps that waist but shortens the blade considerably. The Fulham, appearing around the Claudian invasion of Britain, loses the waist and runs straight edges into a triangular point. The Pompeii, from about 50 AD, is the simplest of all: parallel edges the whole length and a short abrupt point. This blade has parallel edges and a short point, so it is a Pompeii. The names are modern and come from where the best surviving examples were dug up, four of them from Pompeii itself, buried by Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Because it is built as a display sword rather than a reproduction, and we would rather explain that than let you discover it. Surviving Pompeii blades measure roughly 42 to 50 centimetres, which is about 16.5 to 20 inches; this one is 24. That is not a small difference on a short sword, and it puts the blade closer to the length of the Hispaniensis, the earliest pattern, than to the Pompeii it otherwise resembles. There is a practical reason the Romans went short. The gladius was used in close formation behind a large shield, where a long blade is a liability and a short one can be worked in a space barely wider than a man's shoulders. Length was not an oversight they corrected; it was a constraint they designed around. If you want the historical proportion we build it at 18 or 20 inches at no extra cost, and it is a noticeably better object in the hand.

Two reasons, and the second matters more than the first. Roman gladii of all four patterns weigh somewhere between about 700 and 1000 grams. This one is 1380 without the scabbard. Part of that is simply the extra length, but most of it is the distal taper: a historical blade thins steadily in thickness as well as width from the hilt toward the point, so the last third carries far less steel than the base. A blade with a gentler taper keeps more mass out at the far end of the lever, and that is where it is felt most, in how quickly the sword recovers after a thrust and in how long you can hold it in guard. Ask for the historical weighting when you order and our smiths take the taper down. It costs nothing extra and it is the single most worthwhile thing you can specify on this page.

Both, and the popular picture overcorrects. Roman military writers emphasise the thrust, and there is a well-known passage arguing that a thrust of two inches is usually fatal while a cut, however spectacular, is often survivable. That is genuine period advice and it reflects how the sword was used in formation. But the conclusion people draw from it, that the gladius was a pure stabbing weapon with a negligible edge, does not survive contact with the archaeology. Surviving blades are sharpened along their full length, they are broad enough to cut well, and Roman accounts of fighting in Greece describe wounds that can only have come from cuts. The honest position is that it was a short double-edged sword optimised for the thrust and entirely capable of the cut, and that in a shield wall the thrust was simply the move you had room for.

In four parts assembled on the tang, which is the standard Roman arrangement and quite unlike a medieval hilt. From the blade backwards: a guard block sits against the shoulders of the blade, then the grip, turned with finger grooves, then a large rounded pommel, all threaded onto the tang and secured at the end. The originals used wood, bone and ivory for these components, sometimes in combination, and the same four-part logic appears on nearly every surviving example regardless of which blade pattern it carries. The large pommel is not decoration: it counterweights a blade whose mass sits forward, and it gives the heel of the hand something solid to drive against, which is exactly what you want on a sword used primarily to thrust.

On a baldric over the shoulder, and on the right hip rather than the left. That surprises people, since a right-handed swordsman would normally wear a sword on the left. The reason is the shield: a legionary carrying a large scutum on the left arm cannot easily reach across his body to draw, and a short blade can be drawn from the right hip with the same hand that will use it, in one movement, without the point fouling anything. It is one of those details where the equipment only makes sense as a system. The scabbard suspension reflects it too: the twin rings on binding plates that this scabbard carries are the Roman arrangement, designed for a baldric rather than for hanging from a belt loop.

5160 high-carbon spring steel, forged down from leaf spring in the Nepali tradition, oil-quenched and then tempered back. It is a considerably better material than anything available in the first century and we would rather say so than imply otherwise. Roman smiths worked with bloomery iron of variable and unpredictable carbon content, and the better swords were made by combining strips of harder and softer material, sometimes pattern-welded, to get a blade that would hold an edge without shattering. They achieved remarkable results with difficult material. Modern spring steel is consistent, and it is selected specifically for its ability to flex repeatedly without taking a set, which is exactly what you want in a sword. So this blade is better than a Roman one in every measurable respect, and it is not made the way a Roman one was.

Not as it ships. It is sharpened on both edges and no reenactment group or fencing club will allow a sharp sword on a field or a drill floor, and rightly. Blunting it yourself is not the answer either: a training sword is a different build from the forge up, with edges left thick, a tip rolled or flared so it cannot pierce, and the blade tuned appropriately. Grinding the edge off a sharp sword leaves you with a rigid bar with a spike on the end, which is more dangerous rather than less. Tell us your group's standard and we will forge a trainer to it. Roman reenactment societies tend to have specific and well-documented requirements, so send us the spec rather than a description and we will build to the document.

Lay it flat and sight along it edge-on from the hilt. Every sword narrows in width toward the point, which is obvious at a glance; a good one also thins in thickness, which you have to look for deliberately. That distal taper is what decides how a sword recovers and how it feels held out, and it matters more than total weight. On a gladius the blade is short enough that the taper is subtle, so look carefully at the last six inches in particular. Our twin fuller bollock dagger page sets the test out in full. It is worth applying to any sword you are considering from any maker, and on this piece it connects directly to the weight question above.

We cannot answer that for you and you should be wary of any seller who claims they can. Sword legislation is a genuinely separate body of law from knife legislation, and the answers surprise people: in a number of countries ownership at home is entirely unrestricted while carrying in public is a serious offence, and in others import requires paperwork that a knife of any size would never need. Rules for owning, carrying and importing are three separate questions and you should check all three for your own address before ordering. If import is the obstacle rather than ownership, tell us and we will advise on what we can and cannot send where.

Choose on the blade rather than on the name, because they are genuinely different swords. Take the Pompeii, this one, if you want the classic legionary silhouette, the simplest lines and the strongest point. Take the Fulham if you want the transitional form, straight-edged like the Pompeii but with a longer drawn-out point, and associated with the invasion of Britain. Take the Mainz if you want the waisted blade and the long point, which is the more elegant shape and the one most often illustrated in older books. Take the Hispaniensis if you want the earliest and longest, the sword Rome adopted from Spain and named after it. If you are portraying a specific period, the dates in the first question above will decide it for you.

Close, but not identical. The blade is drawn out by eye against a pattern and ground by hand, so the exact width and the angle of the point vary slightly. The hilt components are turned individually and timber differs piece to piece in colour and figure, which on a four-part hilt shows in three places rather than one. The scabbard binding plates are formed and fitted to the individual sword, so their proportions shift a little. What does not vary is the specification: length, steel, construction, heat treatment and sharpness are held to the same standard on every piece.