10 Roman Weapons So Brutal They Were Banned From History Books

10 Roman Weapons So Brutal They Were Banned From History Books Sometime around two hundred and eighteen years before the common era, on a battlefield in northern Italy, a Roman soldier made a choice that would echo for six centuries. He dropped his longer Italic sword and picked up a shorter blade, barely the length of a forearm, taken from a captured Spanish warrior. It was not an impressive weapon to look at. It had no ceremony, no mythological origin, no divine blessing. It was a flat, double-edged iron blade, roughly twenty inches long, with a simple wooden grip and a pointed tip designed for a single, specific purpose. Not to slash. Not to intimidate. To puncture. To drive through gaps in armor, between ribs, into the soft organs that keep a man alive.