Roman weapons being the inspiration for Relic weapons?

sampleswift

In Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, many video games, etc. Relic weapons exist. They are from an earlier time and are more powerful than contemporary ones. Could the inspiration for this be Roman weapons in the early Medieval era?
Supposedly the Roman weapons might me more powerful than the early Medieval/Gothic Tribes' weapons? Or was scavenging Roman weapons meant that this wasn't the case?
 

Arkenfolm

Valyrian steel is pretty clearly based on wootz steel and Damascus steel, very high-quality steel made in distant lands using unknown techniques while other uses of this trope like Tolkien are more from the long tradition of weapons with supernatural traits (or are borrowed from Tolkien's use of that trope).
 

Gloss

I have recently heard that actual metalwork quality of common tools increased as the Roman interconnected economy declined.
 

FairlyUninformedGraduate

Gone Fishin'
The Romans basically bulk produced infantry gear. They didn't craft fine blades for one on one combat designed to last a warrior their lifetime. Their weapons were designed to last well enough to repeatedly stab the guts of enemy soldiers in battle and be replaced if they broke or wore out. It's the difference between a brown Bess musket and a unique hunting rifle made be craftsmen in the same era. The latter is probably better made and fancier, but the former killed far more enemies.

In that sense Roman weaponry betokens an almost industrial military system, not 'honourable' 'noble' one to one combat between skilled individual fighters.

Remember the account of the speech to the Roman legion fighting Boudicca: 'use your shields to knock them down, and finish the job with your gladius' basically (it's very brevity makes it more plausible this is a more accurate record than most pre battle speeches known!). Hardly epic combat.
 

TyranicusMaximus

On that note I remember reading on RomanArmyTalk that soldiers who could afford to, whether because of a successful campaign or several years of service tended to buy their own equipment and could get better gear than their initial set.
 

Pauh the federalist

While its not a wepon, apparently roman concrete fits this bill, in that it is seemingly better then modern concrete in many ways (it lasts for thousands of years) and we have little understanding of how they did it.
 
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Fabius Maximus

As others have said, barbarians tended to scavenge Roman armour because the Romans made so much of it, not because it was qualitatively better. So, for example, more Roman soldiers than Goths would have chain-mail coats, but a Gothic chain-mail coat would be just as good as a Roman one.
 
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