Gladius is a Latin word signifying "sword" of any sort, however in its limited sense, it alludes to the blade of antiquated Roman infantry men. Early old Roman swords were like those of the Greeks, called xiphe . From the third century BC, nonetheless, the Romans embraced a blade in light of the weapons utilized by the Celtiberians in Hispania late into the Punic Wars, referred to in Latin as the gladius hispaniensis, or Hispanic sword. New sorts and variations of the gladius, for example, the "Mainz gladius" and the Pompeii gladius, were utilized since the primary century AD, until they were supplanted by the spatha in the third hundred years.