pugio

The pugio (; plural: pugiones) was a dagger used by Roman soldiers as a sidearm. It seems likely that the pugio was intended as an auxiliary weapon, but its exact purpose for the soldier remains unknown though it seems it could have been used for close quarters fighting. Officials of the empire took to wearing ornate daggers in the performance of their offices, and some would wear concealed daggers for defense in contingencies. The dagger was a common weapon of assassination and suicide; for example, the conspirators who stabbed Julius Caesar used pugiones. The pugio developed from the daggers used by the Cantabrians of the Iberian peninsula.

== Etymology == The word pūgiō derives from the word pungo. The root of the word is pug. The word derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *peuĝ. It is still possible to use punch and stab synonymously in many Indo-European languages (even English, namely the "jab" in boxing); hence, Latin pugnus and Greek πυγμή pygmḗ mean "fist". The Smith article cited below proposes that the pugio was the weapon grasped by the fist; however, the Latin word for swordplay was pugna, an exchange of thrusts without the intermediary of fists, although it could also be a fistfight.