Note 310 — Chapter V · THE SECOND CHALCITIC AGE OF ALLOYS[242]—BRONZE, BRASS, ETC.: THE AXE AND THE SWORD.
Reading edition
The Massagetæ (greater Jats or Goths) are opposed to the Thyssa (or lesser) Getæ, and both used the sagaris. But while some authors translate the word securis, others call it a ‘kind of Sword,’ and others confuse it with the ἀκινάκης, the acinaces which the Greek mentions separately (iv. 62, viii. 67). Strabo (xi. 8) connects the Massagetæ (Goths) with the Sacæ (Saxons), and Major Jähn derives Sacæ (the Shaka of the Hindus) from Saighead = Sagitta. The term ‘Saxones’ was later than the age of Tacitus, and we first find it in the days of Antoninus Pius. ‘Brevis gladius apud illos (Saxones) Saxo vocatur’ suggests that the Seax was connected with the race of old (Trans. Anthrop. Instit. May 1880).