Others from Germany, some of which are said to have Roman numerals upon them, have been figured by Lindenschmit.[721]
Examples from Italy have been given by Strobel,[722] Gastaldi,[723] Lindenschmit,[724] and others.
They have been found in great abundance in some of the settlements on the lakes of Switzerland and Savoy. It has been thought that the Lake-dwellers did not cut off merely the ears of their corn,[725] but “that the straw was taken with it, otherwise there would not have been the seeds of so many weeds in the corn.” Diodorus Siculus, however, who wrote in the first century b.c., tells us distinctly that the Britons gathered in their harvest by cutting off the ears of corn and storing them in subterraneous repositories. From these they picked the oldest day by day for their food. Whether for threshing they made use of the tribulum,[726] that “sharp threshing instrument having teeth,” before Roman times, is doubtful; but that so primitive an instrument, armed with flakes of flint or other stone, should have remained in use in some Mediterranean countries until the present day, is a remarkable instance of the power of survival of ancient customs. Such an instance of persistence in a primitive form much reduces the extreme improbability of the use of bronze sickles in Germany having lasted until a time when Roman numerals might appear upon them. If every St. Andrew’s cross and every straight line found upon ancient instruments is to be regarded as a Roman numeral, and the objects bearing them are to be referred to Roman times as their earliest possible date, the range of Roman antiquities will be much enlarged, and will be found to contain, among other objects, a large number of the bronze knives from the Swiss Lake-dwellings; for one of the most common ornaments on the backs of these knives consists of a repetition of the pattern XIIIIIXIIIIIXIIIII.
Even were it proved that in some part of Europe the use of bronze sickles survived to so late a date as supposed by Dr. Lindenschmit, their great scarcity in the British Isles affords a conclusive argument against their being assigned to the period of the Roman occupation, of which other remains have come down to us in such abundance.
CHAPTER IX.
KNIVES, RAZORS, ETC.
It is a question whether, if in this work strict regard had been paid to the development of different forms of cutting implements, the knife ought not to have occupied the first place, rather than the hatchet or celt; for when bronze was first employed for cutting purposes it was no doubt extremely scarce, and would therefore hardly have been available for any but the smaller kinds of tools and weapons.
