So would a tree-chopping herring be a melee weapon?
</Monty Python>
I suppose it might if it were frozen... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
The Spartans like most soldiers of their day did carry a sword...most likely a xiphos or occasionally a kopis. A xiphos is slender, double-edged, and slightly leaf-shaped, with blades mostly around the 60cm mark in length. A very effective stabbing design. The Spartans in particular moved in later days to a much shorter xiphos, with blades as short as 30cm. It was still slender and doubled-edged, not like a Bowie at all. A kopis, less common, is longer, single-edged, and much heavier; optimized for hacking and chopping.
It's important to note that the sword was, again, only a secondary weapon. A Spartan's primary weapon was his dory, or pike, a simple point-on-a-stick. He drew his sword only when his dory was broken, or when the formation collapsed and you were too close to use it. Also significant here is that a Spartan had a huge shield to protect himself with, increasing the usefulness of his small sword.
Battlefield single-edged swords evolved from the xiphos to the falchion, and then abandoned for a time as armor simply got too good for them to be any use. Single edged weapons finally reappeared as the sabre when gunpowder made the wearing of armor obsolete.
Just trying to say, short bladed weapons intended for combat are universally doubled edged, making them daggers (or no-edged, making them stilettoes), and the only single-edged weapons on the field designed to be weapons were long and heavy, beyond even machetes. Which isn't to say that knives can't be used as weapons, or weren't used as weapons. Conscripts, especially, rarely had any standardized arms and brought whatever they could, so you had all manner of pitchforks, mallets, felling axes, hooks, scythes, and knives. But the knife was never intended to be firstly a weapon. The so-called "combat knife" or Bowie pattern is a relatively recent development, and rarely sees use as the weapon of a trained combatant since rifles and even pistols are more effective.
Opinion and semantics perhaps, but there you go.
My comparison of the xiphos to the bowie was not in design but rather in size. The xiphos's double edged leaf blade gave it some forward weight in the blade increasing it's chopping ability. Double edged daggers of the current traditional shape are really poor choppers. It's interesting that the Hoplites were the only ones to use the shorter sword. The hoplon or large shield was their main overall defense and everything revolved around it. The spear worked at distance but lost it's effectiveness in close quarters which is where the Xiphos entered the picture. They wisely covered all the basses from short to extended distances.
Generally speaking the spear was the primary weapon all the way up to firearms and yes the sword was secondary. Single edged swords did not entirely disappear as they were popular in the mid to far east. Single edged swords were also common in northern Europe among the Vikings and among the Saxons in Germany and the Japanese. These swords were not heavy and were designed for the field. The double edged sword did have the advantage of being able to be used longer in combat when one edge dulled you could simply flip it over. There are references to swords being replenished during battle in Sagas.
I disagree that knives designed for combat are "universally" double edged. Perhaps in a modern sense they are however certainly not in an historical one.
I really don't understand why the bowie was not adopted as a battle knife it's far superior to the doubled edged dagger. I realize that in today's modern army the knife plays less of a fighting roll and more of a General duty roll. Even the Bayonet is rarely used for combat purposes however like I said to a soldier everything is a tool for war which may be used for some other task.
