Gladius was one Latin word for sword, is used to represent the primary sword of Ancient Roman foot soldiers. Early ancient Roman swords were similar to those of the Greeks, called xiphos. From the 3rd century BC, the Romans adopted swords similar to those used by the Celtiberians and others during the early part of the conquest of Hispania; this sword was known as the gladius hispaniensis, or "Hispanic sword". A equipped Roman legionary after the reforms of Gaius Marius was armed with a shield, one or two javelins, a sword a dagger, in the empire period, darts. Conventionally, soldiers threw pila to disable the enemy's shields and disrupt enemy formations before engaging in close combat, for which they drew the gladius. A soldier led with the shield and thrust with the sword. Gladius is a Latin masculine second declension noun, its plural is gladiī. However, gladius in Latin refers to any sword, not the modern definition of a gladius; the word appears in literature as early as the plays of Plautus.

Gladius is believed to be a Celtic loan in Latin, derived from ancient Celtic *kladios or *kladimos "sword". Modern English words derived from gladius include gladiator and gladiolus, a flowering plant with sword-shaped leaves. According to Polybius, the sword used by the Roman army during the Battle of Telamon in 225 BC, though deemed superior to the cumbersome Gaul longswords, was useful to thrust, it was based on the Greek xiphos. During the Battle of Cannae in 215, they found Hannibal's Celtiberian mercenaries wielding swords that excelled at both slashing and thrusting. A text attributed to Polybius describes the adoption of this design by the Romans before the end of the war, which canonical Polybius reafirms by calling the Roman sword gladius hispaniensis in Latin and iberiké machaira in Greek, it is believed Scipio Africanus was the promoter of the change after the Battle of Cartagena in 209 BC, after which he set the inhabitants to produce weapons for the Roman army. In 70 BC, both Claudius Quadrigarius and Livy relate the story of Titus Manlius Torquatus using a "Hispanic sword" in a duel with a Gaul in 361 BC.

However, this has been traditionally considered a terminological anachronism caused by the long established naming convention. Still, some believe the Celtiberian sword was adopted after encounters with Carthaginian mercenaries of that nationality during the First Punic War, not the second. In any case, the gladius hispaniensis became known in 200 BC during the Second Macedonian War, in which Macedonian soldiers became horrified at what Roman swords could do after an early cavalry skirmish, it has been suggested that the sword used by Roman cavalrymen was different from the infantry model, but most academics have discarded this view. Arguments for the Celtiberian source of the weapon have been reinforced in recent decades by discovery of early Roman gladii that seem to highlight that they were copies of Celtiberian models; the weapon developed in Iberia after La Tène I models, which were adapted to traditional Celtiberian techniques during the late 4th and early 3rd centuries BC. These weapons are quite original in their design.

As for the origin of the word gladius, one theory proposes the borrowing of the word from *kladi- during the Gallic wars, relying on the principle that K became G in Latin. Ennius attests the word. Gladius may have replaced ensis, which until was used by poets. By the time of the Roman Republic, which flourished during the Iron Age, the classical world was well-acquainted with steel and the steel-making process. Pure iron is soft, but pure iron is never found in nature. Natural iron ore contains various impurities in solid solution, which harden the reduced metal by producing irregular-shaped metallic crystals; the gladius was made out of steel. In Roman times, workers reduced ore in a bloomery furnace; the resulting pieces were called blooms, which they further worked to remove slag inclusions from the porous surface. A recent metallurgical study of two Etrurian swords, one in the form of a Greek kopis from 7th century BC Vetulonia, the other in the form of a gladius Hispaniensis from 4th century BC Chiusa, gives insight concerning the manufacture of Roman swords.

The Chiusa sword comes from Romanized etruria. The Vetulonian sword was crafted by the pattern welding process from five blooms reduced at a temperature of 1163 °C. Five strips of varying carbon content were created. A central core of the sword contained the highest: 0.15–0.25% carbon. On its edges were placed four strips of low-carbon steel, 0.05–0.07%, the whole thing was welded together by forging on the pattern of hammer blows. A blow increased the temperature sufficiently to produce a friction weld at that spot. Forging continued; the sword was 58 cm long. The Chiusian sword was created from a single bloom by forging from a temperature of 1237 °C; the carbon co

The Sword of Honour trilogy by Evelyn Waugh consists of three novels, Men at Arms and Gentlemen and Unconditional Surrender, which loosely parallel Waugh's experiences in the Second World War. Waugh received the 1952 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Men at Arms; the protagonist is heir of a declining aristocratic English Roman Catholic family. Guy has spent his thirties at the family villa in Italy shunning the world after the failure of his marriage and has decided to return to England at the beginning of the Second World War, in the belief that the creeping evils of modernity apparent in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, have become all too displayed as a real and embodied enemy, he attempts to join the Army succeeding with the Royal Corps of Halberdiers, an old but not too fashionable regiment. He is posted to various centres around Britain. One of the themes is recurring "flaps" or chaos – embarking and disembarking from ships and railway carriages that go nowhere. Crouchback meets the fire-eating Brigadier Ben Ritchie-Hook, Apthorpe, a eccentric fellow officer.

Before being sent on active service, he attempts to seduce his ex-wife Virginia, secure in the knowledge that the Catholic Church still regards her as his wife. He and Ben Ritchie-Hook share an adventure during the Battle of Dakar in 1940. Apthorpe dies in Freetown of a tropical disease, thus ends the first book. Crouchback manages to find a place in a fledgling commando brigade training on a Scottish island under an old friend, Tommy Blackhouse, for whom Virginia left him. Another trainee is Ivor Claire, he learns to exploit the niceties of military ways of doing things with the assistance of Colonel "Jumbo" Trotter, an elderly Halberdier who knows all the strings to pull. Crouchback is posted to headquarters for the Middle East theatre of operations; this involves him in the Battle of Crete. Crouchback acquits himself well on Crete, though muddle prevail. He, Ludovic and a few others achieve a perilous escape from the advancing Germans in a small boat. Ludovic wades ashore in Egypt. A hero, Ludovic is made an officer.

In Egypt the beautiful and well connected Mrs Stitch, a character who figures in other Waugh novels, takes Guy under her wing. She endeavours to protect Claire, evacuated from Crete though his unit's orders were to fight to the last and surrender as prisoners of war, she arranges for Crouchback to be sent the long way home to England to prevent him from compromising the cover story worked up to protect Claire from desertion charges. Guy finds asking around for a suitable job, thus ends the second book. Crouchback spends 1941–1943 in Britain at desk jobs, he turns 40 and, with Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union and Britain's subsequent alliance with the Soviets, feels a sense of the war's futility. American soldiers swarm around London. Virginia is reduced to selling her furs, she had been persuaded to accompany Trimmer, her former hairdresser, set up as a war hero for media consumption. She searches futilely for an abortionist, she decides to look for a husband instead. Crouchback is selected for parachute training, preparatory to being sent into action one last time.

The commanding officer at the training centre is Ludovic. In Crete, Ludovic had deserted from his unit, in the process murdered two men, one on the boat. Although Crouchback was delirious at the time, Ludovic is afraid that he will be exposed if Guy meets him. A misfit as an officer, he becomes paranoid and isolated. Guy is injured during the parachute training, finds himself stuck in an RAF medical unit, cut off from anyone he knows, he contacts Jumbo Trotter to extract him and returns to live with his elderly bachelor uncle Peregrine Crouchback. His father having died and left an appreciable estate, Guy is now able to support himself comfortably; this attracts the attention of Virginia. Before Guy goes abroad, he and Virginia are remarry. Virginia has her baby there. Despite being incorrectly suspected of pro-Axis sympathies because of his time in pre-war Italy and of his Catholicism, Guy is posted to Yugoslavia where he is appalled by the partisans, befriends a small group of Jews and finds out that his former friend de Souza's loyalties are with the Communists rather than with Britain.

While Guy is overseas, a German doodlebug hits Uncle Peregrine's flat and kills him and Virginia, but not the infant son of Virginia and Trimmer, in the country with Guy's sister. On his late father's advice, Guy attempts individual acts of salvation, but these make matters worse for the recipients; the Yugos

Person Colby Cheney was a paper manufacturer and Republican politician from Manchester, New Hampshire. He was the 35th Governor of New Hampshire and represented the state in the United States Senate. Cheney was born in Holderness to abolitionists and Moses Cheney. Oren Burbank Cheney, the founder of Bates College, was Person Cheney's older brother. Cheney attended academies in Peterborough and Hancock and the Parsonsfield Seminary in Parsonsfield, Maine, he engaged in the manufacture of paper in Peterborough until 1866, in 1854 was a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. During the Civil War he was first lieutenant and regimental quartermaster in the Thirteenth Regiment of the New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry, he was state railroad commissioner 1864-1867. He moved to Manchester in 1867 and engaged in business as a dealer in paper stock and continued the manufacture of paper at Goffstown, he engaged in agricultural pursuits until being elected mayor of Manchester in 1871. He was Governor of New Hampshire from 1875 to 1877.

Cheney was appointed as a Republican to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Austin F. Pike, served from November 24, 1886, to June 14, 1887, when a successor was elected and qualified, he was not a candidate for election to fill the vacancy, resumed his former manufacturing pursuits. Cheney served as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Switzerland in 1892–1893, he died in Dover, Strafford County, New Hampshire in 1901 and is buried in the Pine Grove Cemetery at Manchester. United States Congress. "Person Colby Cheney". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved February 14, 2008. Cheney at New Hampshire's Division of Historic Resources