Apparently the Roman invaders unduly depreciated the ancient Britons. Strabo[1028] declares them to be cannibals; yet he includes amongst their produce gold, silver, iron, and corn. Cæsar[1029] makes them use the ring money of Egypt, but Dr. Evans[1030] has proved that England had a gold coinage in the first century B.C. It is an old remark that a people can hardly be savages when they employ the _currus falcatus_ or scythe war-car, the ᵹꞃıom carbad or ‘Carbad scarrda’ of the Irish, the Welsh _kerbyd_, borrowed from the Gallic Kelts.[1031] Pomponius Mela also assures us that they had cavalry, besides _bigæ_ and _currus_.[1032] Their works in glass, ivory, and jet, and their incense cups suggest extensive intercourse, commercial and social, with the Continent. During the ninety years which separated Julius Cæsar and Claudius, the Britons had made progress in letters, and had built important towns. The amount of Latin blood introduced into England has, perhaps, been undervalued by our writers; but the discovery of Roman ruins, which rapidly proceeds and succeeds, will draw the attention of the statistician, and that ‘new man, the anthropologist,’ to a highly interesting subject.[1033] The bronze Swords of the ancient Britons are of two kinds: the leaf-blade and the Rapier, both well cast. The total length of the former is about two feet, the extremes being sixteen inches to thirty, and in rare cases more. The blades are uniformly rounded, but with the part next the edge slightly drawn down so as to form a shallow fluting. The breadth appears greatest at the third near the point, and this would add to the facility of unsheathing. In almost all cases they are strengthened by a rounded mid-rib more or less bold; or they show ridges, with and without beading, or parallel lines that run along the whole blade or the greater part near the edges. Some combine mid-rib and ridges. The shoulders are either plain, notched, or flanged. In rare instances the outer part of the hilt is of bronze: Dr. Evans engraves[1034] a specimen of this kind. The total length of the weapon is twenty-one inches, of which the globular pommel and the grip, made for a large hand, occupy five. The hilt has the appearance of being cast upon the blade: it seems to have been formed of bronze of the same character, and there are no rivets by which the two castings could be attached. The shallow crescent, whose hollow faces the mid-rib (fig. 293), is a characteristic feature, and endures for ages in the northern bronzes. [Illustration: FIG. 293.—BRITISH SWORD, BRONZE. (Tower.)]