the economic problem would have long stood in the way had there been no other difficulty to be surmounted. It seems to me that the real hindrance to the adoption of iron in the manufacture of cutting implements was the softness of the metal itself, as, until the method of tempering it, by suddenly plunging it when heated into cold water, became known, tools and weapons made of it would be actually inferior to those of bronze. Polybius (Book II, c. 33) incidentally records a striking instance of the comparative uselessness of untempered blades. In describing the victory of Flaminius over the Insubres, inhabiting Cisalpine Gaul, he informs us that the Romans are thought to have shown uncommon skill in this battle by instructing their troops how they were to conduct themselves. Having learned that the Gallic tribes could only give one downward cut with their long pointless swords (as after this the edges got so turned and the blade so bent that unless they had time to straighten them with the foot against the ground they could not deliver a second blow), the Roman soldiers were instructed to meet the first onset of the Celts with their spears and then use their swords. The result was that, "when the Celts had rendered their swords useless by the first blows delivered on the spears, the Romans closed with them and rendered them quite helpless by preventing them from raising their hands to strike with their swords, which is their peculiar and only stroke, because their blade has no point.
