'nother thing I learned from Caesar's Legion. One of the great advantages a Roman Legionary held over his opponents: (Daniel will like this) pointy swords.
No kidding. Everybody else had a sword with a rounded tip. Useless for stabbing.
'nother thing -- their pilum (javelin) was 1/3 iron and 2/3 wood. The iron was deliberately left somewhat soft. The opening move of every battle was to thr javelins at the enemy's close-packed troops. Why were they close-packed? Because the opening move was to throw javelins. If you're standing close enough together, you can all raise your shields and and everyone is protected. The reason the pilum is soft is so that it'll bend when it penetrates the enemy's shield. If you get lucky, and the Romans threw enough javelins that they frequently did, the javelin point would penetrate the edge of 2 overlapping shields, bend, and (effectively) staple those shields together. heh. Pretty smart, those Romans.
No kidding. Everybody else had a sword with a rounded tip. Useless for stabbing.
'nother thing -- their pilum (javelin) was 1/3 iron and 2/3 wood. The iron was deliberately left somewhat soft. The opening move of every battle was to thr javelins at the enemy's close-packed troops. Why were they close-packed? Because the opening move was to throw javelins. If you're standing close enough together, you can all raise your shields and and everyone is protected. The reason the pilum is soft is so that it'll bend when it penetrates the enemy's shield. If you get lucky, and the Romans threw enough javelins that they frequently did, the javelin point would penetrate the edge of 2 overlapping shields, bend, and (effectively) staple those shields together. heh. Pretty smart, those Romans.
I seem to recall reading that the reason why the Romans had so many good ideas is that they felt free to use any good idea that they saw anyone else use.
Since they had a fairly cosmopolitan society, they were exposed to ideas from all over the world and were able to take good ideas from all over.
I haven't heard the sword differences described that way (I think many of the slashing swords that the Romans would have fought against had 'sharp' points), but it emphasizes the correct point. Most swords of the era were effective cutting weapons, but not effective stabbing weapons. An organized line of shielded Romans with their stabbing swords attacking from behind cover would be very difficult for a force with slashing/slicing weapons to deal with.