BRONZE WEAPONS NOT SAXON. 23 



Thirdly. The bronze swords do not resemble in form those 

 used by Eoman soldiers. 



Fourthly. The Latin word " ferrum" was used as synony- 

 mous with a sword, showing that the Komans always used 

 iron. 



Fifthly. The ornamentation is not Roman in its character. 



Sixthly. The bronze used by the Komans contained, gene- 

 rally, a large proportion of lead, which is never the case in 

 that of the Bronze Age. 



In Plutarch's Essay on the Pythian Responses, Philinus 

 describes certain ancient bronze statues which were of a 

 peculiar colour, and says : Was " there then some mode of 

 alloying and preparing the bronze used by the ancient artificers, 

 like the traditional tempering of swords, which process being 

 lost, bronze obtained exemption from warlike employment" ?* 

 The evidence, therefore, seems conclusive. 



Nor is there any subsequent period to which we can refer 

 the weapons and implements of bronze. Great numbers of 

 Saxon interments have been examined both in this country 

 and on the Continent, and we know that the swords, lances, 

 knives, and other weapons of that time were all of iron. 

 Besides this, if the bronze implements and weapons had 

 belonged to post-Roman times, we should certainly, I think, 

 have found some of them in the ruined towns, and with the 

 pottery and coins of that period. Moreover, the similarity 

 to each other of the weapons found in very distant parts of 

 Europe, implies more extended intercourse between different 

 countries than any which existed in those centuries. On the 

 whole, then, the evidence appears to show that the use of 

 bronze weapons is characteristic of a particular phase in the 

 history of European civilization, and one which was anterior 

 to the discovery of iron, or, at any rate, to the general use 

 of that metal for cutting purposes. 



* Plutarch. On the Pythian Responses. 



