The Ancient Bronze Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments, of Great Britain and Ireland.

by John Evans

But not only has there been a question, as to what was the method of interment in vogue among the owners of the bronze swords, but, as already mentioned in the Introductory Chapter, serious dispute has arisen whether the swords themselves are not Roman, or at all events of Roman date. The late Mr. Thomas Wright[1009] was the most ardent advocate of this latter view, and he has been to some extent supported by Mr. C. Roach Smith.[1010] The contrary view, that the swords belong to a Bronze Age before the use of that metal was superseded by that of iron, has been ably advocated by the late Mr. A. Henry Rhind, F.S.A.Scot.,[1011] and Sir John Lubbock.[1012] It seems almost needless for me here to enter further into this controversy, in which, to my mind, as already stated in the Introductory Chapter, the whole weight of the argument is in favour of a pre-Roman origin for these swords in Western and Northern Europe. There was no doubt a time when bronze swords were in use in Greece and Italy, and the substitution of iron or steel for bronze, so far as we can judge from the early iron swords found in the ancient cemetery at Hallstatt and elsewhere, involved little if any alteration in the form and character of the weapon, which was better adapted for thrusting than for striking. Even here in Britain, by the time when the Roman invasion took place, not only were swords made of iron in use, but the form of what is known as the Late-Celtic[1013] sword was no longer leaf-shaped, but slightly tapering, with the edges nearly straight almost as far as the point. Among the Romans it would seem that more than one change was made in the form of their swords after the introduction of iron as the material from which they were formed. As Mr. Rhind has pointed out, Polybius speaks of the swords wielded by the soldiers of Æmilius at the battle of Telamon, B.C. 225, as made not only to thrust but to give a falling stroke with singular effect. “During the Second Punic War, however, which immediately succeeded the battle of Telamon, the Romans adopted the Spanish sword,” the material of which we have no difficulty in definitely ascertaining, as “Diodorus Siculus[1014] particularly mentions the process by which the Celtiberians prepared their iron for the purpose of manufacturing swords so tempered that neither shield, helmet, nor bone could resist them.” How far their process of burying iron underground until a part of it had rusted away would, in the case of charcoal iron, leave the remaining portion more of the nature of steel, I am unable to say. Perhaps the amount of manipulation in charcoal necessary to restore the rusted plates to a serviceable condition may have produced this effect of converting the iron into mild steel. The steel of the sabres made in Japan,[1015] which will cut through an iron nail without their edge being injured, is said to be prepared in a similar manner from iron long buried underground.

Most of the bronze swords are shorter than those of the present day; but the Roman sword would, in the time of Julius, appear to have been longer than ours. Otherwise Cicero’s joke about his son-in-law, Lentulus, would have but little point, however small in person he may have been. Indeed, Macrobius[1016] expressly says that it was a long sword that Lentulus was wearing when Cicero made the inquiry, Who has tied my son-in-law to a sword?

The swords in use among the Britons at a somewhat later period appear to have been of great size, for Tacitus speaks of them as “ingentes” and “enormes.” They were also bluntly pointed, or “sine mucrone.” Such a description is entirely inconsistent with the form and size of our bronze swords, though it might well refer to some of the iron blades of the Late-Celtic Period, which are 3 feet in length. Others are, however, shorter.

Of the comparative rarity of bronze swords in Italy, and of their abundance in Scandinavia and Ireland, countries never occupied by the Romans, Sir John Lubbock[1017] has already spoken; and he has also summarized the reasons which convince him, as they do me, that our bronze weapons cannot be referred to Roman times. I will only repeat one of the arguments, of which perhaps not sufficient use has been made. It is that at the time when Julius Cæsar was invading Britain, and its inhabitants were thus for the first time brought in contact with Roman weapons, iron had been so long in use for swords in Italy that the term for the weapon was “ferrum.”

Another feature in bronze swords, which has been frequently commented on by archæological writers, is the comparatively small size of the hilt. “The handles are always very small, a fact which tends to prove that the men who used these swords were but of moderate stature.”[1018] “The handles of the bronze swords are very short and could not have been held comfortably by hands as large as ours—a characteristic much relied on by those who attribute the introduction of bronze into Europe to a people of Asiatic origin.[1019]

I must confess that I regard this view of the smallness of the hilts as being somewhat exaggerated. My own hand is none of the smallest, and yet where the bronze hilts of the Danish and Hungarian swords have been preserved I have no difficulty in finding room to clasp them. The part of the hilt where it expands to embrace the base of the blade was, I think, probably intended to be within the grasp of the hand, and not to be beyond it as a guard. In the case of some of the short dagger-like weapons it seems possible that the projecting rim, which forms a kind of pommel at the end of the hilt, was intended to rest between the fourth and the little finger, and thus to assist in its being grasped firmly when in use as a stabbing weapon. When the plates of horn or wood, which, as we shall subsequently see, once covered the hilt portion of the sword, have perished, it is hard to realise what was the exact form of the hilt; but it is quite evident that we must not assume that because the bare bronze does not fill the hand so as to give it a good grip, the same was the case when it had a plate of some other material on each face, which also possibly projected beyond the sides.

There is, moreover, one peculiarity about the hilt-plates of these swords which I have often pointed out by word of mouth, but which I think has not as yet been noticed in print. It is that there is generally, though not universally, a proportion between the length of the blade and the length of the hilt-plate; long sword blades having as a rule long hilt-plates, and short sword blades short hilt-plates. So closely is this kind of proportion preserved, that the outline of a large sword on the scale of one-sixth would in some cases almost absolutely correspond with that of one which was two-thirds of its length, if drawn on the scale of one-fourth.

This relative proportion between the length and size of a blade and its handle is by no means restricted to the swords of the Bronze Period, but prevails also among various tools, such as the saws and chisels of the present day. If, for instance, we were to argue from the saw-handles in a carpenter’s shop as to the size of the hands of the carpenters, we should soon find ourselves in difficulties. The handle of an ordinary hand-saw is sufficiently large to admit the hand of any one short of a giant, while the orifice in the handle of a small keyhole-saw will not admit more than a couple of fingers, and the handles of saws of intermediate size range between these two extremes. This fact suffices to inculcate caution in arguing from the hilt-plates of the bronze swords as to the size of the hands of those who used them. It is a question which will be more safely determined on osteological than archæological evidence; but, owing to the remarkable absence of bronze swords from the interments in our barrows, it may be some time before a sword and the bones of the hand that wielded it are found in juxtaposition.

Professor Rolleston[1020] has well said, “I am not quite clear that this bronze sword, leaf-shaped or other, has always a very small hilt.” “At any rate, there can be no doubt that in this country the skeletons of the Bronze Period belonged to much larger and stronger and taller men than did the skeletons of the Long Barrow stone-using folk who preceded them. In some parts of England the contrast in this matter of size between the men of the Bronze and those of the Stone Age is as great as that now existing between the Maori and the gentle Hindoo.”