[310] The Massagetæ (greater Jats or Goths) are opposed to the Thyssa (or lesser) Getæ, and both used the sagaris. But while some authors translate the word securis, others call it a ‘kind of Sword,’ and others confuse it with the ἀκινάκης, the acinaces which the Greek mentions separately (iv. 62, viii. 67). Strabo (xi. 8) connects the Massagetæ (Goths) with the Sacæ (Saxons), and Major Jähn derives Sacæ (the Shaka of the Hindus) from Saighead = Sagitta. The term ‘Saxones’ was later than the age of Tacitus, and we first find it in the days of Antoninus Pius. ‘Brevis gladius apud illos (Saxones) Saxo vocatur’ suggests that the Seax was connected with the race of old (Trans. Anthrop. Instit. May 1880).
[311] Loc. cit. p. 43.
[312] Egypt. akhu, Lat. ascia, Germ. Axt. The oldest form is ‘aks’ (securis), the bipennis, ‘dversahs,’ and the dolabrum ‘barte.’ In Lower Saxon axt is ‘exe,’ a congener of our ‘axe.’
[313] The word is variously written and explained.
[314] A silepe from the armoury of King Mosesh was shown at the National Exhibition amongst objects from Natal (Col. A. Lane Fox, Cat. p. 145).
[315] Par Lacombe (Paris, Hachette, 1868).
[316] I have again noticed the sahs, seax, sax, and scramasax in chap. xiii.
[317] Our ‘bill’ is the German Beil, the securis, or axe. Both words appear to me congeners of the Greek βέλος, Sword or dart, showing a missile-age, from βάλλειν, to throw; not, as Jähn thinks, from the Sanskrit bhil. Robert Barret (1598) preferred the pike, although owning that the bill had done good service. Even of late years Messrs. John Mitchel and Meagher (‘of the Sword’) advised the wretched Irish peasants to make pikes out of reaping-hooks.
[318] Prehistoric Times, p. 20. The Dublin Museum contains 1,283 articles of the Bronze Age.
[319] I assume as a type, the bronze Sword (Tafel iv.) in Die Alterthümer von Hallstätten, Salzburg, &c. by Friedrich Simony (Wien, 1851).