Gladius is a Latin word meaning sword (of any type), but in its narrow sense it refers to the sword of ancient Roman foot soldiers. Early ancient Roman swords were similar to those of the Greeks, called xiphe (plural; singular xiphos). From the 3rd century BC, however, the soldiers of the Roman Republic adopted a sword based on the celtic sword used by the Celtiberians in Hispania late into the Punic Wars, known in Latin as the gladius hispaniensis, meaning Hispanic-type sword. New variants of the gladius, such as the Mainz gladius and the Pompeii gladius, were used from the first century AD and during the early centuries of the Roman Empire; in the third century AD the gladius was replaced by the spatha.