General A. Pitt-Rivers’ collection has two Swords from Spain. The first is a bronze, sub-leaf-shaped, with a thin protracted point. The length is twenty-one inches; the breadth at the swell two inches, thinning near the handle to one inch and a quarter; the tang is broken, and there are two rivet-holes at the shoulder, which is two inches wide. The other, which the owner calls a ‘Kopis,’ also twenty-one inches long, and two inches and a half in width, has a broad back and a wedge-section. The cutting part is inside, and the whole contour remarkably resembles the Kukkri or Korah of Nepaul, and, in a less degree, the Albanian Yataghan and the Kabyle ‘Flissa.’ The Kopis, however, has a hook-handle as if for suspension; and there is a swelling in the inside of the grip.
‘As the Celtiberians,’ continues Diodorus, ‘are furnished with two Swords,’ (probably espada y daga), ‘the horsemen, when they have routed their opponents, dismount, and, joining the foot, fight as its auxiliaries.’ The Lusitanians, most valiant of the race, inhabited a mountain-land peculiarly rich in minerals. Justin[948] speaks of the gold, copper, lead, and vermilion, which last named the ‘Minho’ river. Of the iron he says: ‘It is of an extraordinary quality, but their water is more powerful than the iron itself; for the metal being tempered in it becomes keener; nor is any weapon held in esteem among them that has not been dipt in the Bilbilis or the Chalybs.’[949] Strabo[950] represents Iberia as abounding in metal, and arms the Lusitanians with poniard and dagger, probably meaning dirk and knife.
THE SWORD OF THE OLD GAULS.
Fig. 287.—Gallic Sword of Bronze (Jähns).
The Northern neighbours of the Celtiberians—the warlike old Keltic[951] Gauls—were essentially swordsmen: they relied mainly upon the Claidab.[952] When they entered Europe they had already left behind them the Age of Stone; and they made their blades of copper, bronze, and iron. The latter, as we learn from history, entered into use during the fourth or fifth century b.c., the later Celtic Period, as it is called by Mr. Franks. The material appears to have been, according to all authorities, very poor and mean. The blade was mostly two-edged, about one mètre long, thin, straight, and without point (sine mucrone); it had a tang for the attachment of the grip, but no guard or defence for the hand.
Yet their gallantry enabled the Gauls to do good work with these bad tools. F. Camillus, the dictator,[953] seeing that his enemy cut mostly at head and shoulders, made his Romans wear light helmets, whereby the Machairæ-blades were bent, blunted, or broken. Also, the Roman shield being of wood, he ‘directed it for the same reason to be bordered with a thin plate of brass’ (copper, bronze?). He also taught his men to handle long pikes, which they could thrust under the enemy’s weapons. Dionysius Halicarnassus introduces him saying, while he compares Roman and Gaulish arms, that these Kelts assail the foe only with long lances and large knives (μάχαιρας κοπίδες)[954] of sabre shape (?). This was shortly before his defeating and destroying Brennus and the Senonian[955] Gauls, who had worsted the Romans (b.c. 390) on the fatal dies Alliensis,[956] and who had captured all the capital save the Capitol.
The Gauls of Cæsar’s day[957] had large iron mines which they worked by tunnelling; their ship-bolts were of the same material, and they made even chain-cables of iron. They had by no means, however, abandoned the use of bronze arms. Pausanias[958] also speaks of ταῖς μαχαίραις τῶν Γαλατῶν. Diodorus[959] notes that the Kelts wore ‘instead of short straight Swords (ξίφους), long broad blades (μάκρας σπάθας[960]), which they bore obliquely at the right side hung by iron and copper chains.... Their Swords are not smaller than the Saunions (σαυνίων[961]) of other nations, and the points of their Saunions are bigger than those of their Swords.’ Strabo[962] also makes the Gauls wear their long Swords hanging to the right. Procopius,[963] on the other hand, notices that the Gallic auxiliaries of Rome wore the Sword on the left.[964] According to Poseidonius,[965] the Gauls also carried a dagger which served the purpose of a knife, and this may have caused some confusion in the descriptions.
Q. Claudius Quadrigarius in Aulus Gellius,[966] noticing the ‘monomachy’ of Manlius Torquatus with the Gaul, declares that the latter was armed with two gladii. Livy describes the same duel in his best style. The Roman, of middling stature and unostentatious bearing, takes a footman’s shield and girds on a Spanish Spatha—arms fit for ready use rather than show. The big Gaul, another Goliah, glittering in a vest of many colours, and in armour stained and inlaid with gold, shows barbarous exultation, and thrusts out his tongue in childish mockery. The friends retire and leave the two in the middle space, ‘more after the manner of a theatrical show than according to the law of combat.’ The enormous Northerner, like a huge mass threatening to crush what was beneath it, stretched forth his shield with his left hand and planted an ineffectual cut of the Sword with loud noise upon the armour of the advancing foe. The Southron, raising his Sword-point, after pushing aside the lower part of the enemy’s shield with his own, closed in, insinuating his whole body between the trunk and arms of his adversary, and by two thrusts, delivered almost simultaneously at belly and groin, threw his opponent, who when prostrate covered a vast extent of ground. The gallant victor offered no indignity to the corpse beyond despoiling it of the torques, which, though smeared with blood, he cast around his neck.
Polybius,[967] recounting the battle at Pisæ, where Aneroestes, king of the Gæsatæ,[968] aided by the Boii, the Insubres, and the Taurisci (Noricans, Styrians), was defeated by C. Atilius (a.u.c. 529 = b.c. 225), shows the superiority of the Roman weapons. He describes the Machairæ of the Gauls ‘as merely cutting blades ... altogether pointless, and fit only to slash from a distance downwards: these weapons by their construction soon wax blunt, and are bent and bowed; so that a second blow cannot be delivered until they are straightened by the foot.’ The same excellent author,[969] when describing the battle of Cannæ (b.c. 216), tells us that Hannibal and his Africans were armed like Romans, with the spoils of the preceding actions; while the Spanish and Gaulish auxiliaries had the same kind of shield, but their Swords were wholly unequal and dissimilar. While the Spanish Xiphos was excellent both for cutting and thrusting, the long and pointless Gallic Machæra could only slash from afar. Livy[970] also notices the want of point and the bending of the soft and ill-tempered Keltic blades.