The ''dolabra'' is a versatile axe used by the people of Italy since ancient times. The ''dolabra'' could serve as a
pickaxe
A pickaxe, pick-axe, or pick is a generally T-shaped hand tool used for prying. Its head is typically metal, attached perpendicularly to a longer handle, traditionally made of wood, occasionally metal, and increasingly fiberglass.
A stand ...
used by
miners and excavators, a priest's implement for ritual religious slaughtering of animals and as an entrenching tool (
mattock
A mattock is a hand tool used for digging, prying, and chopping. Similar to the pickaxe, it has a long handle and a stout head which combines either a vertical axe blade with a horizontal adze (cutter mattock), or a pick and an adze (pick mat ...
) used in
Roman infantry tactics
Roman infantry tactics refers to the theoretical and historical deployment, formation, and manoeuvres of the Roman infantry from the start of the Roman Republic to the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The focus below is primarily on Roman tactic ...
. In the 1st century CE, at the battle of Augustodunum, armoured Gallic gladiators were defeated by legionaries wielding ''dolabrae''.
Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo
Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo ( Peltuinum c. AD 7 – 67) was a popular Roman general, brother-in-law of the emperor Caligula and father-in-law of Domitian. The emperor Nero, highly fearful of Corbulo's reputation, ordered him to commit suicide, which ...
said, "you defeat the enemy with a pickaxe".
[Strauss, Barry S. The Spartacus War. Simon & Schuster, 2009. Print.]
See also
*
Digging stick
A digging stick, sometimes called a yam stick, is a wooden implement used primarily by subsistence-based cultures to dig out underground food such as roots and tubers, tilling the soil, or burrowing animals and anthills. It is a term used in ar ...
*
Pulaski
Bibliography
*
Adrian Goldsworthy
Adrian Keith Goldsworthy (; born 1969) is a British historian and novelist who specialises in ancient Roman history.
Education
Adrian Goldsworthy attended Westbourne School, Penarth. He then read Ancient and Modern History at St John's Colleg ...
, ''The Complete Roman Army''
*Strauss, Barry S. The Spartacus War. Simon & Schuster, 2009. Print.
References
Hand tools
Ancient Roman tools
Ancient Roman legionary equipment
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