Gaulish nobles with beautifully handmade swords, their figured bronze hilts set with jewels, were subjugated by guys using cheap mass-produced gladii turned out by fabricae in their tens of thousands. All the loving polish on a hammer head don't help it drive nails.
(...and it pains me as much to say that as anybody. I remember walking into the living room early one morning at my old place, up in the pre-dawn light to go staff the tables at a gun show. There on the coffee table in the dim grey half-light was my S-prefix Model 27-2, lying between a couple of Bangor Punta-era N-frame guns. For a second, I wondered where I'd gotten two parkerized N's until I realized that they just looked that dull by comparison in the gloaming.)