Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898), S, Scyphus, Secūris

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Secūris

（πέλεκυς). An axe or hatchet used for a variety of purposes, as for a weapon (Curt. iii. 4); for sacrificing victims (Hor. Carm. iii. 23, 12); or for felling trees (Ovid, Trist. iv. 2, 5). When it had a small second edge projecting at the back of the regular blade it was called securis dolabrata (see Dolabra), and securis simplex to distinguish it from the two-edged axe (bipennis; cf. Pallad. R. R. i. 43). The name is also given to the symbolical axe carried by the lictor in the fasces (see Fasces), and indicating the power of death which the State possessed. A pickaxe is also sometimes called securis (Stat. Silv. ii. 2, 87).

Harry Thurston Peck. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898.

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Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Secūris