Why replace the gladius?

I have been reading up a bit on the Roman Legions and have a couple questions.

First of all why was the gladuis replaced by the spatha? The spatha was a fair bit longer than the gladius and therefore significantly harder to wield in close formation. Following the myriad successes achieved with the gladius why change?

Secondly, does anyone know the reason for switching to, and then away from, the lorica segmentata? Was it more effective? Easier/harder to make and maintain?

Thirdly, why was the rectangular scutum replaced with the more oval shields of the later legions?

Finally how many of these changes were made due to the changing role of the legions from a offensive juggernaut to a defensive immovable object?
 
It's more complicated and gradual than I described it, so you'd pardon me the lack of details, I hope.

First of all why was the gladuis replaced by the spatha?
Gladius itself became less and less fitting its original role : already by the Principate, it became more of a slashing weapon than piercing (it's not exactly like it never evolved), and with the rise of cavalry warfare by the II/IIIrd century a more long range weapon became necessary.

Secondly, does anyone know the reason for switching to, and then away from, the lorica segmentata?
In spite of being heabily associated with Romans, segmentata wasn't widely present. It had good qualities, but was quite costly and hard to repair/maintain and therefore more limited to prestigious units as legionaries.

Most of Roman army used mail or scaled armor, even by the Ist century. With the changes in military institutions, the need to identify some units from the armour, the need of more quickly and less costly made armours made segmentada's use slowly disappearing.

It's even possible that its use among legions wasn't general : Trajan's column didn't depict it at all. At best, it was a very "identitarian" armor, a mix between parade uniform and war uniform.

Thirdly, why was the rectangular scutum replaced with the more oval shields of the later legions?
There again, the rectangular scutum may be more of a stereotype than a reality : it was often more oval than squared, even in the Ist centuries.
As for definitely more "flat" shielfs, auxiliaries were using such since a long time.

Eventually, this too heavy shield was probably unfit military changes as well, when it asked for less costly and more mobile equipment.

Finally how many of these changes were made due to the changing role of the legions from a offensive juggernaut to a defensive immovable object?
I'm not too sure I'm understanding you. Legions and Roman armies went from more mobile tactics regardless of the operational or strategical use.

If something, the golden age of what you describe is more in a period where less mobility was required (Cesarian legions seems to have widely used mail armor, for exemple), and while the concept of "in-depth" operations was more or less unknown (while you had something like "defense in advance" using clients and operation beyond limes) it never prevented Roman armies to get mobile (as the Late Imperial warfare can point).
 
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Thank you for the answers :) what i meant by the last question was how much did the changing role of the legions, from primarily offensive conquerers during the Republic especially, to defensive protectors during the majority of the imperial era play in the changing gear of the legionaries.
 
I have been reading up a bit on the Roman Legions and have a couple questions.

First of all why was the gladuis replaced by the spatha? The spatha was a fair bit longer than the gladius and therefore significantly harder to wield in close formation. Following the myriad successes achieved with the gladius why change?

Well the gladius was an amazing sword at the hands of a well trained legionary, but you had to had courage to use it, because in an open conflict the gladius short reach is an handicap. The gladius was perfect for tight formations, but it took a lot of time to get used to it and it need to be used by proper soldiers that had to work in unison to hack their enemies down to size. With the crisis of the third century, the training became more dull, the professionalism deteriorated, the longer sword was developed because, while less effective than the galdius if the Romans were retaining their proper formation and discipline, it was easier to train and could be used without a stellar formation and without the discipline of previous armies. It's also a lot less scary to face an enemy with a long sword than a short sword.

The spatha was more versatile in its employment- instead of predominately being a hacking and stabbing weapon, the soldiers could slash at their enemies from a longer standoff range. They did not need to close with the enemy quite as much. Plus while the gladius was useless when the formations broke, the spatha was perfect for open fighting. Ex: During the 8th and 9th centuries it was common for warriors to use two swords, a short one for when they fought in the shieldwall and another one, longer, for open fighting.

Secondly, does anyone know the reason for switching to, and then away from, the lorica segmentata? Was it more effective? Easier/harder to make and maintain?

The lorica segmentata was an amazing peace of armour. The segmentata will stop the impact of a blow better than mail, but it was very expensive to make and to maintain. The legionaries had to pay their armour, actually their first salaries were used to pay for their equipment, and segmentata was expensive so most would prefer to use the cheaper hamata or the even cheaper squamata, scale armour. The maintains was also different, to repair the hamata would take any armorer about 2 minutes with a ring, a rivet, and a couple basic tools. To repair the segmentata one would probably had to do removing and replacing several rivets, as well as replacing leather straps or making new fittings.

Plus i think is safe to compare the segmentata to the parade uniform, the armies have these days.

Thirdly, why was the rectangular scutum replaced with the more oval shields of the later legions?

The scutum lacked proper maneuverability. It was an heavy shield, more suited to pitched battles, and is use in the battlefield would be hard. But it was perfect to the type of tactics the roman used during the principate. With the substitution of the gladius for the spatha, the tactics changed. The traditional fighting style had the legionary holding the shield close to the body, using the short gladius to stab out beyond the rim at close quarters. The change to the oval, and the longer spatha and spear which happened at around the same time, suggests a more open style of fighting, with slashing blows and the enemy kept at a greater distance. The oval shield would allow a freer use of the long sword or spear.

Finally how many of these changes were made due to the changing role of the legions from a offensive juggernaut to a defensive immovable object?

The usual theory is that the roman army adopted a Defence-in-depth strategy instead of the usual roman strategy of forward defense. But I personalty think that is false. The roman didn't had a army general staff to implement such a strategy in all it's borders, more the roman ideology never changed, they keep on being aggressive about their military posture.

Virtually all forts identified as built or occupied in the 4th century on the Danube lay on, very near or even beyond the river, strikingly similar to the 2nd-century distribution.

Another supposed element of "defence-in-depth" were the comitatus praesentales (imperial escort-armies) stationed in the interior of the empire. A traditional view is that the escort-armies' role was precisely as a strategic reserve of last resort that could intercept really large barbarian invasions that succeeded in penetrating deep into the empire. But when they were implemented, 312 AD, there hadn't been an invasion for over 40th years, so i can safely assume that they were created more to provide emperors with insurance against usurpers, because they were stationed weeks, if not months, from the areas that would be attacked.

Furthermore, the late empire maintained a central feature of the forward defense of the Principate: a system of treaties of mutual assistance with tribes living on the imperial frontiers. The Romans would promise to defend the ally from attack by its neighbors. In return, the ally would promise to refrain from raiding imperial territory, and prevent neighboring tribes from doing the same.

Late Roman emperors continued major and frequent offensive operations beyond the imperial borders throughout the 4th century. Ex: Valentinian I's campaign against the Quadi in 375. Julian in 356–60 and Valentinian I in 368–74 carried out several operations across the Rhine and Danube designed to force the submission of local tribes and their acceptance of tributarii status.

I hope i could be of help, if you need to see more may i suggest my own sources.

The Roman Army : The Greatest War Machine of The Ancient World, editor Chris McNab, and the romanarmytalk and historum websites.
 
We'd recently had this exact discussion: HERE

Hope there's something useful there as well. Relevant parts:

The spatha was paired with a large round shield, the gladius was paired with a scutum. That's what I would imagine is the reason behind the change.

A spatha matches the round (or oval) shield in size and reach when the shield is held by the grip under the umbon and is so free to rotate around the wrist (so it's used edge-on rather than flat-on to attack the opponent's shield in the shieldwall).

You can put your spatha on either side of a shield that size and still be able to reach the opponent. You may have a real problem doing that with a gladius - your opponent would mechanically reach you first every time even if you had a long enough arm to be threatening.

A large, rectangular, curved shield was not used in the same way. It was there to physically block the enemy's advance and the legionnaires are described as cautiously poking and stabbing with the gladius above the rim or beside the edge.

So the bigger question is why did they change the shield type. Yes, using a round shield edge-on is fairly strong mechanically and maybe stronger than holding the scutum in front of you by one arm, but it also exposes you to other soldiers standing beside the one whose shield you are attacking. The Romans famously had success through teamwork. So why change shields?

The gladius isn't more effective at the spatha's range. The spatha's range is guaranteed by the shield that goes with the spatha. The sword works around the shield.

The gladius is more effective at the gladius' range, which is in turn provided by the scutum forming a strong enough barrier to prevent the fighter with the round shield/spatha combination from pushing the scutum out of the way and using the opening.

So the answer (and the question) is literally a matter of a few inches, really. Why did people stop fighting at a certain range and started fighting at a range that's a few inches longer instead? I don't know. There's interesting stuff being done on the biomechanics of shield fighting these days, and unfortunately the written sources have nothing new to tell us, so we'll probably need reconstructors to figure it out.

I basically described Viking-era reconstruction techniques when speculating about the spatha and the flat shield. They are really very very similar weapons.

Of course then there's the added complication of spatha not being a very precise term. Some of the spathae are basically barely longer than a gladius, some are as long as later arming swords. There is a lot of variation. By the early middle ages, a spatha is any sword whatsoever if encountered in text.

Potentially the spears influenced the shield change which in turn influenced the sword change. The Germanic peoples also used a two-spear combination, the long heavy throwing spear that could double up as a defensive spear just like the pilum, and the shorter spear.

The two spears later combined into one, and Roman spears soon followed (lancea in the 4th c. are basically a combination spear that can do both functions, rather than the javelins they were back in the Republic era). So armed with a spear as your primary formation weapon perhaps the clipea makes a lot more sense than its rectangular predecessor, and once you have a flat oval shield or a flat round shield, you'll need a sword that can work around it.

About armour:

The lorica segmentata was an amazing peace of armour. The segmentata will stop the impact of a blow better than mail, but it was very expensive to make and to maintain. The legionaries had to pay their armour, actually their first salaries were used to pay for their equipment, and segmentata was expensive so most would prefer to use the cheaper hamata or the even cheaper squamata, scale armour. The maintains was also different, to repair the hamata would take any armorer about 2 minutes with a ring, a rivet, and a couple basic tools. To repair the segmentata one would probably had to do removing and replacing several rivets, as well as replacing leather straps or making new fittings.

I am not sure that segmentata was really any more expensive to make than mail, probably much less expensive in terms of labour actually. There are big armour workshops that probably employed slave labour scattered around the Empire, and it takes a lot less time to punch and set the thread through some 40 steel bands than it does to cut wire, make loops, flatted ends, make holes and rivet thousands of rings by hand.

The difference could be maintenace because liner, straps, and steel pieces cut to size might be difficult to distribute, logistically, whereas mail is mail everywhere and repairs the exact same way no matter who made it.

I don't know if we can tell how widespread the scale armours were at all, but they have all the problems of the segmentata and then some in terms of pieces breaking off and needing replacement.
 
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Don't remember where i've read it but i seem to remember reading that the changes in the Shield form was at least partially due to the Oval shape being easier on the legionnaries when marching. Can't say how true this is through.
 
Don't remember where i've read it but i seem to remember reading that the changes in the Shield form was at least partially due to the Oval shape being easier on the legionnaries when marching. Can't say how true this is through.

I also read that explanation somewhere. I think I read it in an Osprey book.
 
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