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I thought the gladius had a steel blade....

[SunkenCiv]

The hilt decor looks a little fruity to me, not an expert at all, but mitigating toward authenticity may be the apparent lack of writing. It appears to be made of bronze, and I think it was identified as ceremonial. The big problem of course is, it's already being rejected on a priori grounds (which are not grounds at all) and having seen the TV show, a whole lot of crap is going to be pureed into a mash that has no validity or meaning. It's not hard to accept Precolumbian contact, not at all, but the Oak Island 'treasure' is 100 percent the amount of jokes at the expense of people who look for it, a list of people which includes FDR.

Andy White's comparison of the sword promoted by Pulitzer (left) and one owned by a Florida diffusionist. [JasonColavito, The Skeptical Xenoarchaeologist]

[buwaya]

Yes, the Romans used iron and steel weapons, at least in historical times.
Bronze ones would have been ceremonial or decorative objects, which is possible.
This doesn’t look like a Roman object especially. It looks like a Hellenistic (late Greek) inspired thing, which could be Roman or could be a lot of other things from around the Mediterranean. Or it could have been someones 19th century souvenir from a trip to Europe.

[dinodino]

I believe they were bronze prior to the discovery of steel...same for the Egyptians et al.

[dhs12345]

Ceremonial?

[arthurus]

Not the first ones, during the bronze age.

[arthurus]

I thought the gladius had a steel blade....

Not the first ones, during the bronze age.

[central_va]

Steel was an exotic metal obtained from recovered meteorites. Steel was very rare and precious back then. Only royalty has steel knives and swords.