Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Dolabra

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

DOLA'BRA (ἀξίνη). An instrument employed for cutting, chopping, breaking, and digging; by woodsmen (Quint. Curt. viii. 4.), agricultural labourers (Columell. Arb. 10. 2. Pallad. iii. 21. 2.), and very generally in the army, for making stockades (Juv. viii. 248.), or breaking through the walls of a fortification (Liv. xxi. 11.), to both which purposes it is frequently applied by the soldiery on the Columns of Trajan and Antoninus. It belonged to the class of instruments which go by the name of hatchet (securis) amongst us; and is often confounded by the writers of a late age with the adze (ascia), with both of which it presents points of resemblance and of discrepancy, having a long handle and double head, one side of which is furnished with a sharp cutting blade, the edge of which lies parallel to the haft, instead of across it, like the adze, and the other side with a crooked pick, something like a sickle, thence termed falx by Propertius (iv. 2. 59.). The example (Dolabra/1.1) introduced is from a sepulchral monument found at Aquileia, and is carried with the inscription DOLABRARIUS COLLEGII FABRUM underneath, which thus identifies the name and nature of the instrument. Compare also the wood-cut s. DOLATUS, where it is shown in use.

2. Dolabra fossoria. The instrument employed by excavators and miners, which had a long handle, like the preceding one, and a head of similar character, furnished with a cutting edge at one side, placed parallel to the haft, and a regular pick at the other, as shown by the annexed example (Dolabra/2.1), from a painting in the Roman catacombs, in which it appears in the hands of an excavator. Isidor. Orig. xviii. 9. 11., and compare the illustration s. FOSSOR, 1. where it is seen in use.

3. Dolabra pontificalis. The hatchet employed in slaughtering cattle, at the sacrifice (Festus, s. Scena), and by butchers (Paul. Dig. 33. 7. 18.), which is furnished with two blades — one broad and large, like a hatchet; the other at the back, of smaller dimensions, and resembling the cutting edge of an ordinary dolabra, as shown by the annexed example (Dolabra/3.1), from a bas-relief representing a sacrifice in the Villa Borghese.

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  Dolabra/1.1
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  Dolabra/2.1
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  Dolabra/3.1