Roman historian Livy describes a sword duel between a Roman officer and a huge Gaul, in which the trained soldier merely blocked a single cut from his enemy's blade with his shield, pushed aside the opposing shield with his own, and ran his opponent twice through the groin, killing him instantly. New recruits were exercised with dummy swords twice the weight of real weapons. Roman soldiers were drilled to fight and maneuver as a single-minded unit, but a practical form of hand-to-hand combat was also geared to the legionnaire's short thrusting sword. There was, in fact, a large body of specialized fighting knowledge to be mastered. Gladiators, who were often slaves or criminals, were taught in special schools called Ludi, by professional instructors, called doctores. Driven by hormones and raw emotion, rather than systematized insight, such struggles would have been the modern equivalent of “duking it out.”Īncient Rome, with its flair for organization, brought systematic structure to sword combat, both in the personal clashes of its gladiators, and in the military actions of its legions. Burton, believed that man evolved his initial combat techniques from watching animals fight and from accounts of early martial encounters, this may well have been so. The 19th century historian, soldier, and fencer, Sir Richard F. Fencing systems have been created, defined, added to, subtracted from, refined, redefined, and re-created, thus coming eventually to its present state in the world. Over the centuries, there has been much struggling toward a hoped for perfection in swordplay. Fencing is sometimes referred to as physical chess. Today, we take for granted that fencing is based on logical behavior and thought. It is a history of observation, inspiration, and innovation. The history of fencing thought is a history of thought directed to a single purpose: how to most effectively place a sword into an enemy’s body to produce the most damaging results without being hit at the same time.
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