Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Axicia

Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary, and Greek Lexicon (Rich, 1849)

AXICIA. A word only met with in a single passage of Plautus (Curc. iv. 4. 21.), which the dictionaries and commentators interpret, a pair of scissors. But the reading or the interpretation seems very doubtful; for the instrument used by the ancients for the same purposes as our scissors, was termed FORFEX by the Romans; and in the passage of Plautus, the axicia is enumerated as an article of the toilet, with the comb, tweezers, looking-glass, curling-irons, and towel; but a pair of scissors, though useful enough on a modern dressing table, would be far less appropriate to the Roman toilet if regard is had to the difference of ancient habits.