Article 1
In the beginning was the sword, "So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." A weapon of lore, in books, history and legend, we remember Attila the Hun’s sword (supposedly given to him by the hand of God), and Excalibur, the sword of Arthur. And of course the sword of Beowulf “Hrunting”, used in battle against the beast, Grendel's mother. The sword is possibly the only hand-held weapon of the ancient world to have it’s sole purpose be none other than to strike dead the fellow man. One of the first military forces to perfect its use was the early Roman Empire. Victory or defeat on the day of battle was oftentimes decided by the closing of the sword, in hand to hand combat. For centuries the phalanx tactics (the Hoplite style of a hedge of spears) dominated Greco warfare. Though there were vestiges to some extent up until the 17th c