Legacy Arms Roman Gladius Review

[@Kratos_God_of_50_BMG]

Legacy Arms’s original Gladius had a weird fuller, but not-fuller and the new version which you and I have it’s been fixed with an Appleseed edge to it. The Mainz is the slightly shorter but widest version, and the Pompeii is thinner and a little longer. You are right, the 5160 blades are like 3” longer than historically accurate versions. I think they were around 18” blades, which is why they feel heavier than you’d think they should be. Even though it can “spin” while you’re using it, I still find it easier to use one handed than say a Viking sword. Great video Matt

[@JoeSteel1]

thats a really beautiful Gladius. Well done, Matthew.

[@CJLiveFromTheOutdoors]

Thanks for doing this review. I'm a student of Roman history and I've been wanting to add a gladius to my collection. While this is a bit longer than I would want for a gladius, it appears to be well constructed. Thanks again for reviewing it.

[@paxofpayne]

Im like you but would start wth a wooden rubis , In hindsight, then once u master it get steel ,that pommel isn't right

[@jamesR1990]

Looks like a great piece. I've been wanting a Gladius for a while now

[@alanashley6097]

This was the first gladius type sword I bought years ago. Because it is made in the Philippines, the round wood grip cracked on mine. Change in humidity living in the upper midwest. I glued and wrapped it and it still is an awesome sword. They make two different types but mine is exactly like this. Good review.

[@christopher7398]

Seems like you get a lot of sword for $200, thanks for the video Matt. Would love to see you do a comparison on what $400 gets you from jkoo, ryansword, and Hanbon.

[@Pablo668]

Nice looking sword. Depending on the era the Gladius was mostly for stabbing rather than cutting/slashing. AFAIK The swords the Romans used did evolve over time, and the Romans were around for quite a long while.

[@matthewschwoebel8247]

My understanding is they got longer over time until the Romans largely switched over to the Spatha during the late empire.

[@JCOwens-zq6fd]

Looks like a decent blade, i would def prefer the handle were a bit shorter with a square type grip but for $200 you almost never get a hilt that is both historically accurate as well as being durable/put together well. Lol

[@rickflubadubdub4298]

Is the blade full tang?

[@adcaptandumvulgus4252]

Looks like a roman spatha vs a gladius leaf shape?

[@alexanderren1097]

It’s a Gladius. Spatha were significantly longer.

[@reactionaryprinciplegaming]

I have been looking for a somewhat decent historical glaidus for a while, but this doesn't look like it.

[@alexanderren1097]

The blade’s Ok but there’s a LOT of things wrong with the hilt starting with the pommel shape not matching ANY Gladius I’ve ever seen. The grip is too long and also should HOT have a round cross section. It should be squared off to let you index your edge alignment.

[@MrBeefy-og7nw]

Doorknob pommel 😂

[@kilianortmann9979]

The round handle is historically accurate, the majority of surviving Gladius handles are round or octagonal. No idea why, maybe they turned the grips and pommels on a lathe, the Romans were pretty big on mass production.

[@stefthorman8548]

It's because it locks the hand in.

[@Brundlefly78]

Yea round handles suck they don't belong on swords since ovate handles tell you which direction the edge is pointed.

[@tsmspace]

I can't help but think a real life gladius would not be so polished and glossed on the wood. A more raw wood probably would give a better grip.

[@jrbailey3208]

Please slow down your spoken prose during your intro: you're hurrying through it so fast, your words are meshing together as to be almost not understandable. Take your time and enunciate if you would; I'd actually like to understand what you are trying to convey. Thank you. Cheers from the Oil Patch in Central WY

[@lucamerla5172]

Are you serious? 😯 Don't take me wrong, I'm not trying to be an a-hole, make you feel like a fool or anything like that, it's just that reading your message kinda surprised me. English is not my first language and I always found Matthew's way of speaking incredibly clear and understandable, probably because he doesn't have much of an accent, so I genuinely found your statement odd, that's all. Wish you a good day there in WY! 😉

[@jrbailey3208]

@@lucamerla5172 I take NO offense at your comment, nor at your intent; conveying your dismay at my view of what we both listened to, but to which we had totally different outcomes. The 'outcomes' and our differences are based upon each of our own subjective receptions of what we both heard: the SAME audio source; we just happened to 'interpret' what we heard quite differently. I speak English and German, though the later no longer as well as once I did, not having been able to return to Germany since 2005, and not having the ability to interact in the language on a daily basis ('don't use it, you lose it'). I've found people in both languages whom I had problems understanding, and that is overwhelmingly due to the cadence (rate of speech) of their speech. This is why Swiss German has ALWAYS amazed me, delighted me, and utterly confused me, all at the SAME TIME when I hear it spoken: it is a 'sing-song' version of German, to my ears a delightful 'lilting' flow of words. I can't really understand Swiss German, except for a few of the stem verbs and nouns of course, but I STILL LOVE to hear it spoken! Bavarian German is a another variant of German that is so 'intense' that I have to concentrate quite heavily to keep track of the context being spoken (and that was back when I could both speak and think in German without having to 'translate' what I heard into English). Bavarian is a 'whole nother world', just like Swiss is, but still more understandable (though when news reports from Bavaria were shown in NRV, northern Germany, there were always 'subtitles' written in High German, so the Northerners could understand what the Bavarian was saying). My point is that though you and I listened to the SAME audio, we heard it in DIFFERENT ways; for you, clear as the proverbial bell, for me, a 'mish-mash' of nearly unintelligible gibberish that I could not understand. It's all about 'how' we hear, in conjunction of 'what' we are hearing. Cheers from the Oil Patch in Central WY

[@DisdainusMaximus]

How accurate is it? Not at all. The shape, materials, construction, everything is pure fantasy. They use stainless steel on their fittings and the leather is fake as well. I'd stay far away from hanwei swords.

[@petar.dj98]

Blade at least doesn’t seem too inaccurate I think

[@stefthorman8548]

Who cares if they use stainless on the fitting? Doesn't matter. the problem is the way too long handle.

[@DisdainusMaximus]

@@stefthorman8548 it matters when you're looking for something that is close to a gladius. Right now it's just a mediocre fantasy sword.

[@lucamerla5172]

​@@DisdainusMaximus A "mediocre fantasy sword" that you can buy for only 200$ and comes with a scabbard though. Look, I completely agree with you on the sword being *far* from being historically accurate and I think no one who's looking for a historically accurate gladius should even consider buying it, but not everyone is looking for and/or can afford historically accurate swords, I think that over all that's not a bad product by any means and if someone likes gladius-looking swords but doesn't have too much money to spend or doesn't care about historical accuracy, that could be a perfect purchase. And mind you that I'm playing devil's advocate here, because 9 times out of 10 I'm the first one to be skeptical about swords that are not historically accurate, what I'm trying to say though, is that not everyone values the same things that you and I do, and that *objectively speaking* the """gladius""" in the video doesn't seem like a bad product at all.

[@AlphonsoFrett-xz6pi]

Please explain more

[@DisdainusMaximus]

Hanwei swords suck.