378 Mr. Frederick PollocJc [Juno 1, 



Tlie sword is essentially a metal weapon. Here at the outset we 

 are on disputable ground ; one cannot take a part eitlier way without 

 differino- from good authorities. But some part must be taken, and 

 on this point I hold with General Pitt-Eivers. The larger wooden or 

 stone weapons, clubs and the like, were not and could not be imitated 

 in bronze in the early days of metal-work, for the one sufficient reason 

 that metal was too scarce. We start then with spear-heads of 

 hammered bronze, imitating the pointed flints which doubtless were 

 still used for arrow-heads until bronze was cheap enough to be thrown 

 or shot away without thought of recovering it. The general form of 

 these spear-heads was a kind of pointed oval, a type which has con- 

 tinued with only minor variations in the greater part of the spears, 

 pikes, and lances of historical times. It is difficult to say whether 

 the spears thus headed were oftener used as missile or thrusting 

 weapons, though the javelin has also forms peculiar to itself, of which 

 the most famous example is the lioman pilum. In the semi-historical 

 warfare of the Homeric poems the spear is almost always thrown ; in 

 the later historical period it is held fast as a pike ; the Eomans, care- 

 fully practical in all matters of military equipment, had different 

 spears for dilferent kinds of service. In mediaeval Europe the missile 

 use of spears had, I believe, disappeared altogether, except in the 

 defence of walls and in naval combats. However these things may 

 be, the need of a handier weajDon than the spear for close quarters, 

 and a readier and more certain one than the club, must have been felt 

 at an early time. A spear broken oft' short would at once give a hand- 

 weapon like the Zulu " stabbing assegai." When metal becomes more 

 abundant, and skill in working it more common, such weapons are 

 separately designed and made ; the sj)ear-head is enlarged into a 

 blade, with but little alteration of form, and we have a bronze * 

 dagger of the tyj)e known to English archaeologists as " leaf-shaped," 

 the characteristic type of the bronze period everywhere. Some of 

 the Greek bronze daggers, indeed, are rather smaller than the full- 

 sized spear-heads. With increasing command of metal the length of 

 blade is increased ; and we have in couise of time a true sword. It 

 is impossible to define where the dagger ends and the sword begins, 

 but perhaps the metal-bladed weapon may faiidy be called a sword 

 when it is two feet long or upwards, and has a metal grij), or nucleus 

 of a grip (the " tang " of the modern armourer), wrought in the same 

 piece with it, and liuished oft' with a counter-guard or jDommcl. It 

 may be observed that the prehistoric armourers, as far as one can 

 guess, had no theories as to the most eftective length of their weapons. 

 I believe the dimensions were determined (within the limits of 

 practical handling by a man of average stature) almost wholly by the 

 costliness of the material. In the later bronze and earlier iron 



* It is not universally true that bronze was known and worked before otlier 

 metals. Iron came first where, as in Africa, it was most accessible. But I 

 speak here with a view to the European development only. 



