When the Romans Conquered Britain
In the mid 1st century CE one of the problems they did not anticipate was the rampant fraud being conducted in the bronze trade. Tradesmen who shaped the metal would buy it from merchants who bought it from the miners in the form of bars of bronze, already mixed from copper and tin.
The issue was that many bars were of inferior quality possessing too much tin which resulted in brittle bronze. The merchants of course would say that they had been told it was goo…