[938] Bronze, &c., p. 298. From Bastian and A. Voss, Die Bronze-Schwerter des K. Mus. zu Berlin, 1878, p. 56.
[939] Bronze, &c., p. 299, from Von Sacken and Lindeschmit’s Alterthümer. The first finds by Herr Namsauer in 1846–64 were 6,000 articles from 993 graves.
[940] I have already noticed the copper Ensis and coppered shield attributed by Virgil (Æn. viii. 74) to the people of Abella, an Italian district under Turnus.
[941] Bronze, &c., p. 277. The author also notices the small handles of bronze Swords, ‘a fact which seems to prove that the men who used these swords were but of moderate stature’ (Prehistoric Times, p. 22). He denies their being very small, and he justly believes that the expanding part of the hilt was intended to be within the grasp of the hand. I have already explained that the hand was purposely confined in order to give more momentum to the cut.
[942] Bronze, &c., p. 297; taken from Gastaldi, Pellegrini and Gozzadini. The author remarks (p. 287) that some of the bronze daggers from Italy seem also to have had their hilts cast upon the blades in which the rivets were already fixed. This is not unfrequent with the Sword, and the object seems mere imitation; like the Hauranic stone-doors, panelled as if to pass for wood.
[943] Bronze, &c., p. 283, we find that the British Museum contains a specimen. Catalog. Italy, p. 28.
[944] Bronze, &c., ibid., quoting from Numm. Vet. Ital. Descript., pl. xii.
[945] See chap. vi.
[946] De Garrul.
[947] De Ferro, i. 195.