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Information about Xiphos

Antique swords, fig. 1-3: Xiphos, fig. 4: Makhaira.
The xiphos (ξίφος) is a double-edged, single-hand sword used by the ancient Greeks. It was a secondary battlefield weapon for the Greek armies after the spear or javelin. The blade was around 65 cm long. The xiphos was good for both cutting and stabbing attacks due to its leaf-shaped blade. It was generally used only when the spear was discarded.

The straight, double-edged design of the xiphos lends it the same overall martial versatility found in the swords used by infantry until the firearm supplanted the sword on the battlefield. Its design lent itself to cutting and thrusting.

Because of the nature of mounted combat, Xenophon recommended using the curved makhaira for cavalry in On Horsemanship 12:11.

It seems that the Spartans developed a shorter sword, about 30cm long, but otherwise similar to the common hoplite xiphos. This shorter version of the xiphos was useful in the close combat of the Greek warfare and was widely used by all Greeks during and after the Peloponnesian War, as are shown by art of that period. However the longer hoplite sword never ceased to exist.

One of the earliest Greek straight, double edged swords, it was introduced possibly by the Dorians around the 1st Millennium BCE. It was used by Greek Hoplite armies around the Mediterranean Sea and even the Black Sea. It is also possible it could have made its way into Iberia and have inspired the famous Roman sword, the Gladius.

A Glossary of the Construction, Decoration, and Use of Arms and Armor, by George Cameron Stone, has the xiphos being a name used by Homer for a sword. The entry in the book says that the sword had a double-edged blade widest at about two-thirds of its length from the point (so not necessarily as shown in the figure), and ended in a very long point.

The xiphoid process is named after the xiphos due to a similarity in shape.

Uses in Popular Culture

  • Many Greek soldiers in the film Troy use the Xiphos as their weapon of choice.
  • In the Soul series of video games, the Grecian Sophitia Alexandra fights with a set of xiphos and a targe. Her sister Cassandra Alexandra fights with similar weapons.
  • In the Disney film Hercules, the main protagonist uses a xiphos in his training.
  • In the film Scream 2, there is a scene where a number of college students are acting in a play about Cassandra; the students playing Cassandra's inner demons have miniature xiphoses as weapons.
A sword is a long-edged piece of metal, used as a cutting and/or thrusting weapon in many civilizations throughout the world. The word sword comes from the Old English , which cognates to Old High German swert, Middle Dutch swaert, Old Norse
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The term ancient Greece refers to the periods of Greek history in Classical Antiquity, lasting ca. 750 BC[1] (the archaic period) to 146 BC (the Roman conquest). It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of Western Civilization.
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SPEAR (Stanford Positron Electron Asymmetric Ring) is a collider at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. It began running in 1972, colliding electrons and positrons with an energy of 3 GeV.
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pilum (plural pila) was a heavy javelin commonly used by the Roman army in ancient times. It was generally about two meters long overall, consisting of an iron shank about 7 mm in diameter and 60 cm long with pyramidal head.
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Infantry or footmen are soldiers who fight primarily on foot with small arms in organized military units, though they may be transported to the battlefield by horses, ships, automobiles, skis, bicycles, or other means.
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firearm is a device that can be used as a weapon that fires either single or multiple projectiles propelled at high velocity by the gases produced through rapid, confined burning of a propellant. This process of rapid burning is technically known as deflagration.
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Xenophon (In Greek Ξενοφῶν, ca. 431 – 355 BC), son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, was a soldier, mercenary and an admirer of Socrates.
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Makhaira (μάχαιρα, also transliterated machaira or machaera; an Ancient Greek word,

*magh-, "to fight") is a term used by modern scholars to describe a type of ancient bladed weapon, generally a large knife with a
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Cavalry (from French cavalerie) were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback in combat. The designation was not usually extended to any military force that used other animals, such as camels or mules.
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Sparta (Doric: Σπάρτᾱ Spártā, Attic: Σπάρτη Spártē
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The hoplite was a heavy infantryman that was the central focus of warfare in Ancient Greece. The word hoplite (Greek ὁπλίτης, hoplitēs) derives from hoplon (
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Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) was an Ancient Greek military conflict, fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases.
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Dorians (Greek: Δωριεῖς, Dōrieis, singular Δωριεύς
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The hoplite was a heavy infantryman that was the central focus of warfare in Ancient Greece. The word hoplite (Greek ὁπλίτης, hoplitēs) derives from hoplon (
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Mediterranean is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by Asia. It covers an approximate area of 2.
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The name Iberia refers to two distinct regions of the old world:
  • The Iberian Peninsula, in Southwest Europe, location of modern-day Spain and Portugal, home to the pre-Roman Iberians. (As a province of the Roman empire it was named Hispania.

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Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea.
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Note: the triangular ricasso or unsharpened portion of the blade just below the hilt is a historical inaccuracy as no historical gladii have been shown to possess this feature.

Place of origin Ancient Rome as gladius, Celtic Europe before then.
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The xiphoid process is a small cartilaginous extension to the lower part of the sternum which is usually ossified in the adult human. By age 15 to 29, the xiphoid usually fuses to the body of the sternum with a fibrous joint.
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State Party  Turkey
Type Cultural
Criteria ii, iii, vi
Reference 849
Region Europe and North America

Inscription History
Inscription 1998  (22nd Session)
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Sophitia Alexandra (ソフィーテーア・アレクサンドル
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Targe (from Old Franconian *targa "shield", Proto-Germanic *targo "border") was a general word for shield in late Old English. Its diminutive, target, came to mean an object to be aimed at in the 18th century.
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Cassandra Alexandra (カサンドラ・アレクサンドル
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The Walt Disney Company

Public (NYSE: DIS )
Founded Burbank, California, USA (1923)
Founder Walt and Roy Disney
Headquarters Burbank, California,
 United States

Key people Robert Iger, President/CEO
Industry Media and Entertainment
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IMDb profile
Scream 2 is a 1997 film, the second part of the Scream trilogy. As with the other films in the trilogy, Scream 2 combines straight-forward scares with dialogue that satirizes conventions of slasher films, especially (in this case)
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In Greek mythology, Cassandra(Greek: Κασσάνδρα "she who entangles men") (also known as Alexandra) was a daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy whose beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy (or,
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