dolabra

{{Short description|Ancient Roman pickaxe-like tool}}

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{{For|the genus of fungi|Dolabra (fungus)}}

Image:HedemuePionieraexte1.jpg

The dolabra{{Cite web|last=William|first=Smith|date=1890|title=A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0063:id=dolabra-cn|url-status=live|access-date=4 November 2021|website=Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160514150706/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0063:id=dolabra-cn |archive-date=2016-05-14 }} is a versatile axe used by the people of Italy since ancient times. The dolabra could serve as a pickaxe used by miners and excavators, a priest's implement for ritual religious slaughtering of animals and as an entrenching tool (mattock) used in Roman infantry tactics. In the 1st century CE, at the Siege of Augustodunum Haeduorum, armoured Gallic gladiators were defeated by legionaries wielding dolabrae.{{Cite journal |last=Cowan |first=Ross |date=September 2021 |title=Tales of the Axe |url=https://www.everand.com/article/534916726/Tales-Of-The-Axe |url-access=subscription |journal=Ancient Warfare Magazine |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=9}}

Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo said, "you defeat the enemy with a pickaxe".Strauss, Barry S. The Spartacus War. Simon & Schuster, 2009. Print.