Acinaces
Encyclopedia
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
ἀκινάκης) or akinaka (unattested Old Persian
Old Persian language
The Old Persian language is one of the two directly attested Old Iranian languages . Old Persian appears primarily in the inscriptions, clay tablets, and seals of the Achaemenid era...
*akīnakah) is a type of dagger
Dagger
A dagger is a fighting knife with a sharp point designed or capable of being used as a thrusting or stabbing weapon. The design dates to human prehistory, and daggers have been used throughout human experience to the modern day in close combat confrontations...
or short sword used mainly in the first millennium BC in the eastern Mediterranean region
Mediterranean Basin
In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin refers to the lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have a Mediterranean climate, with mild, rainy winters and hot, dry summers, which supports characteristic Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub vegetation...
, especially by the Medes
Medes
The MedesThe Medes...
, Scythians and Persians, then by the Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
.
The acinaces is of Scythian origin, but was made famous by the Persians, and rapidly spread throughout the ancient world
Ancient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...
. Its influence can even be seen in the design of Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
weapons such as the jinglu sword.http://home.ix.netcom.com/~kiyoweap/myth/arms-weap/jinglu.htm The Romans
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
believed this weapon originated with the Medes
Medes
The MedesThe Medes...
.
The acinaces is typically 35–45 cm. (14-18 in.) in length and double-edged, and although there is no universal design, the guard may be lobed http://www.hixenbaugh.net/gallery/detail.cfm?itemnum=1881 with the hilt
Hilt
The hilt of a sword is its handle, consisting of a guard,grip and pommel. The guard may contain a crossguard or quillons. A ricasso may also be present, but this is rarely the case...
resembling that of a bollock dagger
Bollock dagger
The bollock dagger or ballock knife is a type of dagger with a distinctively shaped shaft, with two oval swellings at the guard resembling male genitalia . The guard is often in one piece with the wooden grip, and reinforced on top with a shaped metal washer...
, or the pommel may be split http://www.jfsantiquearms.com/edged_weapons/2.html or of the "antenna" type.http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/5793/dscn5905er5.jpg Interestingly, the scabbard
Scabbard
A scabbard is a sheath for holding a sword, knife, or other large blade. Scabbards have been made of many materials over the millennia, including leather, wood, and metals such as brass or steel.-Types of scabbards:...
as much as anything else defines the acinaces and usually has a large decorative mount near the opening allowing it to be suspended from a belt on the wearer's right side.http://www.livius.org/a/1/iran/sword.jpg
Since the acinaces seems to have been a thrusting weapon, and since it was typically worn on the right, it was likely intended to be suddenly drawn with the blade facing down for surprise stabbing attacks.
Identification
Ancient texts say very little about the acinaces, other than that it was a type of "Persian sword." Because of this, authors writing in LatinLatin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
throughout history tended to equate the word with whatever type of weapon the contemporary Persians were using. Thus, it is frequently used in medieval Latin
Medieval Latin
Medieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors,...
texts to mean scimitar
Scimitar
A scimitar is a backsword or sabre with a curved blade, originating in Southwest Asia .The Arabic term saif translates to "sword" in general, but is normally taken to refer to the scimitar type of curved backsword in particular.The curved sword or "scimitar" was widespread throughout the Muslim...
or the like, a meaning it still retains in scientific Latin
Binomial nomenclature
Binomial nomenclature is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, although they can be based on words from other languages...
. Paulus Hector Mair
Paulus Hector Mair
Paulus Hector Mair was an Augsburg civil servant, and active in the martial arts of his time. He collected Fechtbücher and undertook to compile all knowledge of the art of fencing in a compendium surpassing all earlier books...
even goes so far as to translate dussack
Dussack
A Dussack is a type of short, single-edged sword from Central and Eastern Europe ....
as acinaces, because it is curved like a scimitar, and likewise in the works of Jesuit
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
authors describing Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, acinaces is used for katana
Katana
A Japanese sword, or , is one of the traditional bladed weapons of Japan. There are several types of Japanese swords, according to size, field of application and method of manufacture.-Description:...
.
However, the Persian shamshir
Shamshir
A Shamshir also Shamsheer and Chimchir, is a type of sabre with a curve that is considered radical for a sword: 5 to 15 degrees from tip to tip. The name is derived from Persian شمشیر shamshīr, which means "sword"...
is a relatively recent weapon, and did not exist in antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
. The Achaemenid-era Persians
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...
made use of more than one kind of sword. Ancient Persian art
Iranian art
Persian arts, or Iranian arts is one of the richest art heritages in world history and encompasses many disciplines including architecture, painting, weaving, pottery, calligraphy, metalworking and stonemasonry.-The Persian rug:...
typically shows the king's bodyguards and important nobles
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...
wearing ornate diagonal daggers. Greek art
Greek art
Greek art began in the Cycladic and Minoan prehistorical civilization, and gave birth to Western classical art in the ancient period...
, on the other hand, frequently shows Persian soldiers using the kopis
Kopis
The kopis was a sword with a forward-curving blade, primarily used as a tool for cutting meat, for slaughter and animal sacrifice, but also as a weapon....
. One must therefore do some detective work to figure out which type is the acinaces.
One useful bit of evidence is that Greek
Classical Greece
Classical Greece was a 200 year period in Greek culture lasting from the 5th through 4th centuries BC. This classical period had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire and greatly influenced the foundation of Western civilizations. Much of modern Western politics, artistic thought, such as...
and Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
texts sometimes mention the acinaces being given out by the king as a sign of favor. This would tend to point to the dagger.
A ritual
Ritual
A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....
use of acinaces, offered as a gift to the sea by the Persian king Xerxes
Xerxes I of Persia
Xerxes I of Persia , Ḫšayāršā, ), also known as Xerxes the Great, was the fifth king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire.-Youth and rise to power:...
, is also mentioned by Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
(History, VII, 54), in the ritual contrition scene following the episode known as Flagellation of Hellespont.
A very revealing passage is found in Josephus
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...
' Jewish Antiquities 20.186, where the weapons used by the sicarii
Sicarii
Sicarii is a term applied, in the decades immediately preceding the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, to an extremist splinter group of the Jewish Zealots, who attempted to expel the Romans and their partisans from Judea using concealed daggers .-History:The Sicarii used...
are described:
- And the so-called sicarii, which were a type of banditOutlawIn historical legal systems, an outlaw is declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, this takes the burden of active prosecution of a criminal from the authorities. Instead, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute...
, were at that time reaching their greatest number, making use of small swords, which were like the Persian acinaces in respect to their size, but curved like the Roman sicaSicaThe sica was a short sword or large dagger of ancient Thracians/Dacians peoples, used in Ancient Rome too. It was originally depicted as a curved sword, with a blade about 16-18 inches long and many examples have been found in what are today Romania, Bosnia, Bulgaria and Serbia, as well as...
, which is where these bandits got their name.
This also seems to indicate that it is the dagger which is properly called the acinaces though there are those who deny this, translating the above passage as "concave
Concave
The word concave means curving in or hollowed inward, as opposed to convex. The former may be used in reference to:* Concave lens, a lens with inward-curving surfaces.* Concave polygon, a polygon which is not convex....
like the Roman sica".