Skip to the content
Terminology

dolabra

The dolabra 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. • Illustration — Early Roman Dolabra.

dolabra

Eiserne römische Pionieräxte, Römerlager Hedemünden

Dr. K. Grote (Link) · CC BY-SA 3.0

Field
mattock · improvised weapon

Reference Check

Propose documentary evidence for dolabra. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.

Sign in to contribute

World of VALÉORINE

Documentary connections

Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.

Documentary evidence

Documentary basis

Authority files

wikidata · Q1235284 · wikipedia · Dolabra

The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.

Elsewhere in Militaria

6,095 published records in this field, each with its sources named.

Read the complete militaria index

For owners

Own an object connected with dolabra?

A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.