Bone Grip Roman Spatha

The Caesar Gladius has an unsharpened blade forged from EN45 high carbon steel. The guard and pommel are carved from polished wood and the intricately-crafted grip is sculpted from whitened bone. A brass guard plate is fitted atop the guard.

The wood-core scabbard is wrapped in natural, un-dyed leather and encased in extensive brass accenting. Due to the leather being un-dyed, it allows you a rare opportunity to carefully dye the scabbard leather with your own dye to the color of your choice – or you can leave it to age naturally.

The Caesar Gladius has a longer blade than most Gladius with a length in-between that of a standard Gladius and the later Spatha sword. In the early years of the adoption of the Spatha over the Gladius there were some versions of the Gladius that were crafted with longer blades and larger dimensions overall, as seen in several existing examples.

The trend to a longer sword blade in later Roman Empire was started by cavalrymen desiring a longer sword to use from atop their mounts. Many of the barbarian tribes also had a long history of preferring longer swords and in time the recruiting ranks of the Roman military began to be filled more extensively by former barbarian tribesmen (or those who had strongly retained their culture even after their assimilation into the Empire). It seems probable that these new, distinctly un-Roman recruits to the Army brought a preference for their native sword style as they climbed the ranks and influenced military decisions.