About History: Double weight Roman swords and shields

Many of us have heard or read that recruits to the Roman army trained with double weight swords and shields while practicing their attacks and defences against a wooden stake or post. The notion stems from the extant 5th-century AD writing of Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus in his work Epitoma Rei Militaris (“Epitome of Military Science”). More specifically, in Chapter 11 of Book One on “Recruitment and Training” we read:

Antiqui, sicut inuenitur in libris, hoc genere exercuere tirones. Scuta de uimine in modum cratium conrotundata texebant, ita ut duplum pondus cratis haberet, quam scutum publicum habere consueuit. Idemque clauas ligneas dupli aeque ponderis pro gladiis tironibus dabant. Eoque modo non tantum mane sed etiam post meridiem exercebantur ad palos. Palorum enim usus non solum militibus sed etiam gladiatoribus plurimum prodest.

“The ancients, as is found in books, trained recruits in this manner. They wove shields from withies, of hurdle-like construction, and rounded, such that the hurdle was twice the weight that an official shield normally has. They also gave recruits wooden foils likewise of double weight, instead of swords. So equipped, they were trained not only in the morning but even after noon against posts, for the use of posts is of very great benefit to gladiators as well as soldiers.”

So, we are told that the Romans gave their recruits round wicker shields (Latin: scuta; sing. scutum) twice as heavy as those used on active service. No problem, but what follows - “Idemque clauas ligneas dupli aeque ponderis pro gladiis tironibus dabant.” - has often been mistranslated into English as the recruits trained with “wooden swords”. The sentence begins with idemque meaning “in the same way”. This refers once more to the training shields being double the normal weight. The sentence ends by saying that the training weapon given to recruits (tironibus dabant) was double the weight of a gladius “sword”. So far so good, but clauas ligneas does not mean sword, or more specifically a wooden sword (Latin: rudis). The simplest translation in English would be “wooden foil” but in this context perhaps “wooden club” would be a better fit.

It was these double-weight clubs that were used, in conjunction with the heavier wicker shields, to train recruits at the palus or “post”. The increased weight was clearly intended to strengthen the recruit physically, improve their endurance and, when they took up real, lighter weapons, allow them to fight with more confidence and agility. When recruits moved on to one-on-one full contact sparring, then the clubs were not used in favour of a lighter wooden sword or rudis. Bon appétit!