The third form, which is most generally identified with the Roman soldier, greatly resembles that which was introduced into the French army by, not without financial benefit to, Marshal Soult. The average length may be assumed at twenty-two inches, with a grip of six inches and a cross-bar (not always present) four inches and a half long and four lines thick. Some specimens show a distinct hilt-plate (fig. 274, 2). A mid-rib ran along the blade, which was either straight or slightly narrowing, and it ended in the bevelled point (_langue de carpe_).[909] This thick heavy blade, used _cæsim et punctim_, was most efficient for hand-to-hand work, and the Roman soon mastered the truth, unknown to most Orientals, that ‘the cut wounds and the thrust kills.’[910] Accordingly they soon learned to despise the old Sword, short and crooked. The national weapon must have been used by Æmilius at the Battle of Telamon (B.C. 225), for Polybius notes that the Roman blade could not only deliver thrust but give the cut with good effect. Shortly after that fight the Romans, during their earliest invasions of the Spanish Peninsula (B.C. 219), intended to subvert Carthaginian rule, adopted the Gladius Hispanus, including the _pugio_ (fig. 280); and the change from bronze to steel became universal after the battle of Cannæ. The superior material aided them not a little in conquering their obstinate rivals. The Roman Proconsul M. Fulvius captured (B.C. 192) Toledo (Τώλητον), Toletum, ‘a small city, but strong in position;’[911] and the superior temper of the steel, attributed with truth, I believe, to the Tagus-water, recommended it to the conquerors. A later conquest of the Regnum Noricum[912] (Styria, B.C. 16) gave them mines of equal excellence. From Pliny and Diodorus Siculus[913] we know perfectly how the Celtiberians prepared their iron ores. Of this material was made the Spatha[914] or Iberian blade, a name adopted under the Empire, especially under Hadrian (A.D. 117–138). Long, two-edged, and heavier than the short Xiphos-Gladius, it added fresh force to the _impetus gladiorum_. [Illustration: FIG. 278.—SWORD AND VAGINA (SHEATH).] [Illustration: FIG. 279.—DITTO.] [Illustration: FIG. 280.—THE PUGIO.] In Cicero’s time the Sword must have been of full length to explain the joke against his son-in-law; and Macrobius expressly tells us that Lentulus was wearing a blade which justified the ‘chaff.’ During the days of Theodosius (A.D. 378–394), the straight and strong weapon of Hadrian’s time again shortened till it was not twice the size of the hilt; in fact it became a ‘Parazonium.’ The General’s Sword (says Meyrick) was called Cinctorium, because carried at the girdle that surrounded the lorica, just above the hips; ‘it greatly resembled the Lacedæmonian Sword.’