Comments by "Harry Mills" (@harrymills2770) on "Gladius VS Spatha - Why Did The Empire Abandon The Gladius?" video.

  1. It occurred to me in reading the comments that the CORE AND EDGE (one piece) would logically be high-carbon, with the cheaper, softer, more forgiving veneer welded to it. So the whole outside is the soft stuff, except for the edge, itself. That would protect the core, somewhat, I would think, but you'd still have the high-carbon edge as the only part of the core that's showing. My dunno.
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  2. That makes sense. The core AND the edge were the high-carbon steel, and they plastered the more malleable, low-carbon steel over it, to take a beating and add (cheaper) weight to it.
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  3. Not to my understanding, Shurima. I thought the katana was essentially hand-forged, and not a welded laminate of 2 distinctly different types of steel, as is being described.
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  4. Later on, yeah.
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  5. You might be splitting hairs on "in the army," because they made use of barbarians, as needed, for centuries, but not necessarily in Roman formations. Certainly, later, especially in the Eastern Empire, they Romanized and promised lands to Norsemen of the Varangian Guard, for example.
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