^{page 172 note a} Hoare's Ancient Wiltshire, plates xir. xv. xxiii. xxvii. and xxviii. Representations, on a reduced scale, of these curious primitive weapons, are given in my Archaeological Index, plate v. figs. 40–43. A weapon of the same construction was found in a barrow at Blandford in Dorsetshire. Others of similar form have been discovered in the barrows of Derbyshire by Mr. Bateman.

^{page 172 note b} Art-Helvetische Waffen und Geräthschaften aus der Sammlung der H. Alt-Landammann Löhner in Thun, beschreiben von F. Keller; Mittheilungen der Antiquarischen Gesellschaft in Zurich, Zweiter Band, taf. ii. Zurich, 4to. 1844.

^{page 173 note a} Samuel, ii. xxi. 16.

^{page 173 note b} Virgil was of course fully aware of the use of brass in the fabrication of arms in the heroic ages.

Æratæque micant peltæ, micat æreus ensis.—Æn. vii. 743.

^{page 173 note c} Cassiodorus tells us that Belus invented the iron sword!—Belus ferreum gladium primus produxit: à quo et bellum placuit nominari. Variarum, lib. i. e. xxx. See Eustathius on Homer's Iliad, π. for the epithets of Mars, χάλκεος Ἄρης, ὑ σίδηρος Ἄρης.

^{page 173 note d} Bέβαιοι δὲ καὶ ἰίλλως μοι τόν λόγον ἐν ϕασηλίδι ἀνακείμενον ἐν Ἀθηνς ἱερῷ τὸ δόρν Ἀχιλλέως, κα Νικομηδεσιν Ἀσκληπιο να μάχαιρα ἡ Μέμνονος, καὶ το μὲν ἥ τε αἰχμὴ καὶ ὁ σαυρωτὴρ, ἡ μάχαιρα δὲ καὶ διὰ πάσης χαλκο πεποίοηται. Lib. iii. c. 3. A brass spear-head and a sword were found in the tomb of Theseus. Plutarch in Theseo, c. 35.

^{page 174 note a} If we could receive the narrative of Quintus Curtius as literal history, we might attach some importance to the speech which this author puts in the mouth of Darius,—ferro geri hella, non auro, lib. v; but it is allowed that Quintus Curtius flourished in the days of the emperors, when the use of iron had become general. It may be safely inferred, however, that in the time of Alexander the Greek weapons were of the latter metal.

^{page 174 note b} Αἵ τε μάχαιραι τας κατασκευακευα, καθάπερ, εἴρηται πρότερον, μίαν ἒχουσι μεν πρώτην καταϕορὰν καιρίαν ἀπο οέ ταύτης ɛὐθέως αποξυστρουνται, καμπτόμτμɛται κατὰ μῆκος καὶ κατὰ πλάτος ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον ὤστɛ, ἄν μὴ δὼ τις ἀναστροφὴν τοὶσ χρωμένοις ɛἰρɛίσαντɛς πρὸς τὴν γῆν ἀπɛυθῦναι τῷ ποδὶ, τɛλως ἄπρακτον ɛἶναι τὴν δɛν τέραν πληγὴν αὐτ. Lib. ii. c. 33.

^{page 174 note c} While this sheet was in the press I have been informed by M. Troyon that he has discovered in Switzerland, with remains of the Celtic period, iron swords answering more fully to the description of Polybius, and certainly anterior to the Roman dominion.

^{page 174 note d} Thalia, xxiii. lxxii.

^{page 174 note e} Οσα μεν γὰρ ὲς αὶΧμὰς καὶ ὔρδις καὶ σάγαρις χαλκῷ τὰ πάντα χρέωνται * * * * * * σιδήρῳ δέ οὐδ ἀργύρω κρέωνται οὐδέν, οὐδὲ γάρ ουδὲ σΦι ἐστι ἐν τῇ χώρῃ. Clio, ccxv.

^{page 175 note a} Σίδπρος καὶ χαλκὸς, πολέυων ὄργανα De Legibus, xii.

^{page 175 note b} We must not, however, overlook the fact that iron and brass are mentioned together in various parts of the Old Testament; vide, inter alia, Gen. iv. 22, Deuteron. xxxiii. 25, and 2 Chron. xxiv. 12. Iron alone is mentioned in 1 Kings, vi. 7; 1 Samuel, xvii, 7; 2 Samuel, xiii. 7; Job, xli. 7.

^{page 175 note c} Ne ferrum quidem superest, sicut ex genere telorum colligitur. Rari gladiis aut majoribus lanceis utuntur: hastas, vel ipsorum vocabulo, frameas, gerunt, angusto et brevi ferro, sed ita acri et ad usum habili, ut eodem telo, prout ratio poscit, vel cominus vel eminus pugnent; et eques quidem scuto frameâque contentus est. De Morib. Germ. c. vi.

^{page 175 note d} Nee enim immensa barbarorum scuta, enormes hastas, inter truncos arborum et enata humo virgulta perinde haberi, quam pila, et gladios, et hærentia corpori tegmina. Annales, ii. 14.

^{page 176 note a} Archseologia, vol. XXVII. plate XIV.

^{page 176 note b} Sidon. Apoll Paneg. in Majoriano.

^{page 176 note c} Bell. Goth. lib. ii. c. 25.

^{page 177 note a} We learn from Plutarch, that Marius caused his soldiers to fasten the heads of their pila with two pins, one of them of wood, which on the weapon being cast, broke on the impact, and trailed on the ground so as to embarrass the enemy. It is difficult to conceive how this was effected if the spear-head was fastened by a socket. A very singular javelin with a shifting head is described in Grettis Saga, quoted by Bartholin, Ant. Dan. lib. ii. cap. 7.

^{page 177 note b} Agathias, lib. ii.—Vegetius, lib. i. c. 2, informs us, that in his day the barbarians were armed with two or three javelins, a weapon which had fallen into disuse among the Romans. He states that those once used by the Roman soldiers had triangular heads a foot long, that when skilfully cast they would penetrate a coat of mail, and that if they entered the buckler they could not easily be extracted. The Danes and Anglo-Saxons continued to use them. In Olaf's Tryggvasonar Saga, the king is described as using three of these javelins: Olafr Konungr þa er hann sa at Eirikr Jarl var kominn i fyrirrumit a Orminum, skaut konungr til hans þrimr kesium skamskeptum, i. e. Rex Olaus Comitem Ericum in-navem suam, serpentem dictam, ascendisse conspiciens, tres hastas brevioris ligni in eum emittit. Bartholin. Antiq. Dan. lib. ii. c. 7.

^{page 178 note a} Ducange, voce Angon, strangely enough identifies this weapon with the axe He could not have read the description of Agathias. Gregory of Tours does not mention the angon distinctly, but he says that, when the Franks pillaged the basilica of Agen, the hands of some of them were scorched by a mysterious fire, while others, separated from their companions, pierced themselves with their own javelins—propriis se jaculis sauciabant. Hist. Franc, lib. viii. c. 35.

The description of the spear of Thorolf, in Eigil's Saga, in some respects answers to that of the angon, but it is evidently different in others: “Kesiu hafdi hann (þorolfr) i hendi fiodrin var tveggia alna laung ok sleginn framm broddr ferstrendr en upp var fiodrin breid. falrinn bædi langr ok digr. Skaptid var eigi hærra en taka matti hendi til fals ok furduliga digrt, iarteinn var i falnum ok skaptid allt jarnvasit. þau spiot voru kollut brynþvarar; i. e. Thorulfus hastam manu tenuit, cujus ferrum duas ulnas longum, in mucronem quatuor acies habentem desinebat, pars vero quæ manubrium proprior erat, lata fuit; interstitium inter mucronem et hastile, longum et crassum erat. Hastile non longius erat, quam ut praedictum interstitium nttingi posset manu (erectâ extremo hastilis in terram defixo). Interstitium oblongum fuit et ferreum. Lignum laminis ferreis circumdatum erat. Istius modi hastae dicebantur Brynthvaræ.” Bartholini, Antiquitates Danicæ, lib. ii. cap. 8.

^{page 180 note a} Sic tu apud Suessonias in urceo illo fecisti.—Greg. Turon. Hist. Franc, lib. ii. c. 38.

^{page 180 note b} He reproached them with their tame submission to bonds unworthy of the Frank nation. “Cur humiliasti genus nostrum, ut te vinciri permitteres ?” was the stern demand. “Melius est tibi mori; et elevatam securim eapiti ejus defixit.” Then turning to the brother, he continued, “Si tu solatium fratri tribuisses, alligatus utique non fuisset; similiter et hunc securi percussum interfecit.”—Greg. Turon. Hist. Franc, lib. ii. c. 42.

^{page 181 note a} The wretched parricide brought the treasure in a casket to the emissaries of Clovis, remarking “in hane arcellulam solitus erat pater meus numismata auri congerere.” “Immitte manum tuam usque ad fundum, ut cuncta reperias,” said they. “Quod cum fecisset,” continues the historian, “et esset valde declinus, unus elevata manu bipennem cerebro ejus inlisit.”—Greg. Turon. Hist. Franc, lib. ii. c. 40.

^{page 181 note b} Récherches historiques sur les Peuples de la race Teutonique, &c, Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Picardie, tome x^e. p. 121.

^{page 181 note c} Isidorus speaks of this weapon as “Secures quas Hispani ab usu Francorum, per derivationem franciscas vocant.”—Lib. xviii. c. 8. It is noticed by Suidas s. v. ῎ Αγγωνες ἐπιχώρια δόρατα παρὰ Φράγοις—sic Franci hastas in sua regione usitatas vocant. See Pachymeres, lib. vi. c. 30, where mention is still made of this weapon by the name of angon.

^{page 182 note a} In the time of Alexander the Great it was the weapon of the Barcanians, an Asiatic people, of whom there were two thousand men in the army of Darius,— “Barcanorum equitum duo millia fuere, armati bipennibus levibusque scutis cetræ maxime specimen reddentibus.”—Q. Curt. lib. iii. c. 2. Vegetius, so late as the days of Valentinian, speaks of it as a naval weapon, which may be used for cutting the cordage of vessels,— “Securis, habens ex utraque parte latissimum et acutissimum ferrum.”—Lib. iv. c. 46. I do not mean to dispute that the bipennis was known to our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. The illumination of the Fine Psalter, Harl. MS. No. 603, would lead us to infer that it was; but I submit that it was not the common and favourite weapon of the Teutonic races. The ordinary military weapon was the narrow or “taper axe,” of which more hereafter. By some writers the “twybill” is supposed to be the bipennis; but the name” twybill” is not yet obsolete in the West of England, where it signifies a bill-book with a cutting edge at the back. The term bill obviously implies a rostrated, and not an axe-shaped, instrument.

^{page 184 note a} Archaeologia, vol. XXX.

^{page 184 note b} The extensive cemetery at Fairford in Gloucestershire, explored by Mr. Wylie, has afforded no example of the axe or the large knife.

^{page 184 note c} Mittheilungen der Antiquarischen Gesellschaft in Zurich. 1841.

^{page 184 note d} Das Germanische Todtenlager bei Selzen. Mainz. 4to. 1848.

^{page 184 note e} It was with such weapons that Fredegond armed her agents employed to murder Childebert,—“duos cultros ferreos fieri præcepit; quos etiam caraxari profundius et veneno infici jusserat.”—Greg. Turon. Hist. Franc, lib. viii. c 29. See an account in Beda, lib. ii. c. 9, of the attempted murder of Edwin, King of Northumbria, by an assassin armed with a poisoned dagger, which was long enough to pierce the interposed body of the loyal Thane, and wound the King.

^{page 184 note f} In the battle in which Clovis slew with his own hand the Gothic king Alaric, the historian describes the Goths as commencing the conflict with missiles, and the Franks as rushing at once to close fight: “confligentibus his eminus, resistunt cominus illi.”—Greg. Turon. lib. ii. c. 37. Vegetius informs us that the Romans had often suffered from the arrows of the Goths: “Contra Gotthos milites nostri multitudine sagittariorum sæpe deleti sunt.”—Lib. i. c. 2. The different modes of fighting of races of Teutonic origin is very remarkable.

^{page 185 note a} Illi contra fortiter quo quisque valet ingenio resistunt. Jaetant cuspides, ac diversorum generum tela, sœvissimas quasque secures, et lignis imposita saxa.—Gesta Gulielmi Ducis Normannorum, &c. Hist. Normann. Scriptores Antiqui, p. 201.

^{page 185 note b} Et sitost comme les Anglois les virent fuir, ilz commencerent a poursuivrir chascun la hache à son col.—Ext. de la Chronique de Normandie. Rec. des Historiens, tome xiii. p. 235.

^{page 185 note c} In the Bayeux Tapestry, however, the Saxons are represented using axes with long handles. In the Saxon Chronicle, sub anno M.XXIX. we find that Cnut gave to Christ Church, in Canterbury, the haven of Sandwich, and the dues thereof on either side as far as a man standing on a ship at flood tide could cast a taper-axe on shore, -— þa loc hpenne ealpa heh ealpa . beo an . þa neh þan lande þa beo an mann þamp cipe. an habbe ane apep æx on hi * * * The lacuna is compensated by the words of the charter itself,— mæ ān beon ðam scipe ūp on land, &c.—Codex Diplomaticus Ævi Saxonici, vol. iv. p. 24.

^{page 186 note a} Saxon Chronicle, sub anno DCCCCXXXVIII.

^{page 186 note b} Codex Exoniensis, p. 42.

^{page 186 note c} Ibid. p. 49.

^{page 186 note d} Ibid. p. 497.

^{page 186 note e} This word gar appears to be identical with the Danish geir, which in the Runic Lexicon of Magnus Olavius is described as “verutum vel nomen gladii in mucronem acuminati;” and this author attempts to identify it with the framea described by Tacitus: we may suppose, however, with Bartholin, that the weapon was not a sword but a spear, which could be used in close combat or thrown to a distance. This kind of short spear was a favourite weapon with the people of Teutonic race: it was well adapted for that horrible sport of tossing infants, in which the Danish pirates delighted (see Bartholin, Antiq. Danicæ, lib. ii. c. 9), and of which the Scotch are accused by Hoveden, in his account of their invasion of England in the reign of the first William.

^{page 187 note a} Codex Exoniensis, Gnomic Verses, p. 341.

^{page 187 note b} Casusque contigit, ut cum illo proveniens equo desiluisset, ingressurusque ad orandum ecclesiam, ipsum pariter equum et hastam, quam tenuerat manu, ministro dedisset, nee dum enim habitum deposuerat secularem.—Venerabilis Beda, De Vita et Miraculis S. Cuthberti, c. vi. Compare the Canons enacted under K. Eadgar,—Deôplîc man , etc.

^{page 187 note c} Hoc est indicium quod tibi omne regnum meum tradidi.—Greg. Turon. Hist. Franc, lib. vii. c. 33.

^{page 187 note d} The sword of Otger the Dane is thus described by Mabillon, in the Acta Sanctorum:— “Hujus verò spathæ quæ Otgerii dicitur, à summa lamina longitudo est trium pedum, et pollicis unius; secundum capulum et glandem, pollicum septem: summæ laminæ latitudo trium pollicum, in acumine unius et dimidii; totius spathæ pondus est quinque librarum eum quarta parte.” This predilection of the Teutonic races for huge weapons continued for a long time. Gulielmo Pugliese thus describes the swords of the Sueves brought into Italy by Pope Leo IX. in the year 1053.

Præminet ensis;

Sunt etenim longi specialiter et peracuti

Illorum gladii percussum a vertice corpus

Scindere ssepe solent.

The use of such long and powerful swords doubtless led to the adoption of the long knife already noticed. Vegetius speaks of the large and small swords used by the Romans in his days, — gladios majores quos spathas vocant, et alios minores quos semispathas nominant. Lib. i. c. 15.

^{page 188 note a} Mittheilungen der Antiquarischen Gesellschaft in Zurich, 1841. Description des Tombeaux de Bel-Air, par Frédéric Troyon.

^{page 188 note b} Die Gräber der Liven; ein beitrag zur Nordischen Alterthumskunde und Geschichte, von Johann Karl Bähr. Dresden, 1850.