Why did Romans stop using the gladius?

>>2379007

Long story short, the Gladius was too short to be effective against the longer swords the Germanic tribes tarted using around the Crisis of the third century. Thats as far as I know at least.

>>2379007
They became size queens, hence the spatha.

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>>2379007
I read somewhere that gladius worked well with lorica segmentata because you could get close and personal with it and be unharmed afterwards. With the decline of the empire and its economy they couldn't afford the plate armors and problems with manpower (plagues and civil wars) made them switch to mail and longer swords (more defensive) so they could preserve troops. I could be wrong of course but this is interesting topic, maybe some anon can say more or correct me if I'm wrong.

>>2379007
My recollection is that it had to do with the changeover to relying more and more on on "foreign" troops to man the legions. These sorts of troops had always been used as auxiliaries, and generally used their own weapons in that role. As it became impossible to build legions out of Romans, and they looked more and more like just hired mercenaries, they of course wanted to use the weapons they had been familiar with culturally for centuries.

The above comments are wrong.

They did not really stopped using it, the gladius merely became slightly longer, usually about 80ish cm in the late period.

The spatha was developed as a cavalry sword since horsemen require more reach.

>>2379015
utterly wrong

As the Roman military became more barbarianised and training standards fell away meaning they fought in a more ragged manner, as well as the much more mobile nature they had to adopt to defend the empire, a more all round regular sword became better, than a short sword designed for a specific type of combat by a specific type of soldier.

>>2379055

The late Roman military was easily more versatile then the old legions, they had artillery, heavy cavalry regiments including Clibanarii. The military was a less Italian force but it was by no means less effective.

>>2379032
lorica segmentata was never used in great number i recall that mail was the most used armor in both the legions and auxilia during both the republic and the empire.
I think the reason they adipted the spatha is that it was a better weapon when on horseback and for the mobile warfare necessary for defending the empire instead of expanding it.