SECU´RIS
SECU´RIS (
πέλεκυς,
ἀξίνη), an axe. Under this head are
included (1) the workman's axe, (2) the battle-axe, (3) sacrificial axe, (4)
the axe of the lictors, equivalent to the headsman's axe.
1. The workman's axe, when used for felling trees, is spoken of in general
terms as
πέλεκυς (
Il. 23.114;
Xen. Cyrop. 6.2,
36, &c.) and
securis (
Verg. A.
6.180;
Plin. Nat. 16.192,
&c.); but of these woodcutters' axes there were two patterns, the
single-headed and
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Securis simplex. (Trajan's Column.)
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Bipennis. (From a vase-painting.)
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the double-headed. Of these the former (when the distinction was
marked) was called
πέλεκυς ἑτερόστομος
(Poll. 1.137) or
ἡμιπέλεκκον (
Il. 23.851), and is perhaps distinguished as
the
securis simplex (Pallad. 1.43); the
double-headed axe was called
πέλεκυς
ἀμφίστομος or
δίστομος (Poll.
l.c.; Eur.
fr. 534) or
ἀξίνη, which is strictly used only of
the double axe (Hesych.): in Latin it is the
bipennis (Hor.
Od. 4.4,
57; Isid.
Orig. 19.19).
[Blümner,
Technol. 2.202.]
The carpenters' or shipwrights' axes are distinguished in Greek as the heavy
πέλεκυς for rough-hewing the wood, and
the small
πέλεκυς for 7.184; 11.696;
12.306), whether he is for afterwards shaping it more finely (
Od. 9.391;
ASCIA). The following cut of Egyptian shipwrights is
worthy of notice, since the form of the
πέλεκυς there depicted explains what is meant by “shooting
through the axe-heads,” in
Od.
20.574. The difficulties which commentators have found under the idea
that the arrow
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Death of Penthesilea, (Relief on a sarcophagus.)
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passed through the rings which fastened the axe to the handle,
&c., all disappear, if we see
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Egyptian shipwrights, with the axe.
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that the
πέλεκυς the Odyssey had
a ringshaped head. (See Dr. Warre's
Raft of Ulysses, in
Journ. of Hellen. Studies, 1883.) A somewhat similar axe,
but with two circular holes in the blade, was found in 1889 in the
Peloponnesus (
Ephem. Arch. 1889). [For the Roman carpenter's
axe, see ASCIA; DOLABRA.]
2. The use of the axe in war was especially an Asiatic practice. We find the
Trojan Peisander (
Il. 13.612) armed with a
double axe (
ἀξίνη), and again in the fight
at the ships the combatants fight with double and single battleaxes
(
πελέκεσσι καὶ ἀξινῃσι): it is
possible that there also it is to be understood of the Trojans alone. In
agreement with this we find the battle-axe regarded as the characteristic
weapon of the Asiatic Amazons, who use both the single and the double (or
Carian) axe, as in the scene of Penthesilea's death on the sarcophagus from
Thessalonica; and so Horace speaks of the Amazonian battle-axe (
Od. 4.4,
20), and
Virgil consistently represents the Italian shepherds and Camilla as fighting
with this weapon (
Aen. 7.184; 11.696; 12.306), whether he is
merely following Homer, with Trojans substituted for Greeks and Italians for
Asiatics, or is hitting upon the truth that the primitive races both in
Italy and in Northern Europe fought with the axe, which was in fact a weapon
which they had ready to hand for other purposes. (See A. Müller in
Baumeister,
Denkm. p. 2043.) Horace notices it specially of
the barbarous tribes in Rhaetia, as though it were a weapon not commaon in
the Roman experiences of warfare with other Teutonic tribes; and it is
remarkable that on the scabbard of the socalled “sword of
Tiberius” in the British Museum (figured in Vol. I. p. 920
b), which was discovered at Mayence, we have a
relief of an Amazon armed with a
bipennis. It
would,
[p. 2.617]however, be pressing conjectures too far
(as A. Müller points out) to say, with Orelli and others, that this
figure necessarily symbolises the conquered Vindelicia, and was the sword of
honour of Tiberius. We may be content to take it as an additional evidence
of the “Amazonian” battle-axe being used among German nations,
and regarded as characteristic of them, whereas it had long before been
disused in Italy.
3. The sacrificial axe (
securis,
πέλεκυς) was used by the attendant
ministers (
popae) for the slaughter of the
larger victims. (The distinction, whether always preserved or not, was axe
or hammer,
malleus, for slaughtering cattle, a
stone
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Sacrificial axe. (From the Arcus Argentariorum.)
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for swine, and a knife for sheep: see Marquardt,
Staatsverw. 3.181.) The sacrificial axe figured below is
from the relief on the Arcus Argentariorum, and is combined with a vessel
which is very likely the
PRAEFERICULUM
4. For the axe of the lictors, see
LICTOR and
FASCES
[
G.E.M]
