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with blades of the early – up to c. 20 BC – gladius Hispaniensis varying between 64cm and 69cm long and 4–5.5cm wide (Cowan, 2003a: 28). This type was replaced in popularity by the Mainz/Fulham type which was, on average, some 20cm shorter, and by the second half of the first century AD , by the parallel-edged, Pompeii-style gladius , which had a short triangular point ( ibid. : 29).
    A longer sword, the spatha , emerges in the late second century (Feugère, 2002: 115). These longer iron swords have been assigned a ‘Barbarian’ origin by such authors as Feugère ( ibid. ) and were, on average, some 75–85cm long. The spatha made use of impressive pattern-welding technologies with a high degree of craftsmanship (Cowan, 2003b: 60). This type of sword also has a wide distribution, being found on the northern limits of Empire in Scotland (for example, the spatha from Newstead; Goldsworthy, 2003: 133). Although more popular in the period beyond the scope of this study, third-century wooden scabbards for these swords have been found in peat bogs in Denmark, at Vimose (Feugère, 2002: 121).
    Roman swords have been recovered from varying contexts. From the battlefield site of Kalkriese, near Osnabrück in Germany, our evidence is only fragmentary, presumably as Roman weapons would have been very useful and would have been collected by the victorious German tribespeople who had destroyed Varus and his legions in AD 9. What has been found to date includes bronze and silver mountings of a sword sheath, and ‘the tip-binding for a sword scabbard, sword sheath-brackets, sheet metal at the sheath mouths, and guards …’ (Schlüter, 1999: 138–9). These fittings would have enabled the gladius to have been worn by the Roman legionary on his right side and still be unsheathed quickly. Feugère (2002: 110) has detailed a number of the many sword finds throughout the Roman Empire. Handles of the gladius were also made from wood, and had bronze covers; a wooden pommel has been found at Vindonissa with a possible guard for this in similar material. The Royal Armouries, Leeds, has a first-century Roman sword blade that originated in Germany. This sword, which was ornately decorated with figures – perhaps the god Mars – was probably carried by a Roman infantryman, although its quality may hint at it being the belonging of someone with more wealth. Its owner also had his name engraved on the sword – Caius Valerius Primus.
    As far as Britain is concerned, excavations at the fort of the II Legion at Caerleon, Wales, have produced numerous sword fittings. These include a bone-ribbed gladius handle. This piece, some 86mm long, though broken, was believed to have come from a Hadrianic–Antonine context – the early to mid-second century AD . Bone scabbard chapes were also found on this site (Greep, 1992: 188–9). Another Welsh site yielded a gladius ; the iron sword from Caernarvon, some 46cm long, had a badly corroded blade and cracked bone grip (de la Bédoyère, 2001: 28). A bone gladius handle was uncovered from a first-century ditch at Aldgate in London ( ibid. : 28).
    The military dagger or pugio was not only a front-line weapon, but also a tool of campaign, used perhaps for cutting food as well as opponents. Suspended from the left side of the legionary’s belt, the dagger ranged in size from c. 20 to 35cm (Goldsworthy, 2003: 134) with a scabbard that could be richly decorated. By the second century AD , the dagger had become less common as a weapon, so much so that it is not depicted on Trajan’s Column in Rome ( ibid. : 134). Having said this, the weapon still appears on tombstones of this period and the discovery of a military workshop at Künzing, Germany, the stock of which was buried in the third century AD , revealed some fifty-nine dagger blades and twenty-nine sheaths (Feugère, 2002: 128). In addition to the sword fragments discussed above,