- 3<)1 ON THE USE OF BRONZE CELTS
the wall with chisels ; " " periculi oninis immemores, dola- bris perfregere miirimi" (Q. Curtius, ix. 5, [21, ed, Zumpt.]) They thus obtained access to their sovereign, and rescued him from the enemy. The operation is mentioned as one of great hardihood, because it was necessary to go close to the wall. When Hannibal was besieging Saguntum, he sent a de- tachment of five hundred men to destroy the wall from its foundation with chisels ; " quingentos ferme Afros cum dola- bris ad subruendum ab imo murum mittit" (Livy, xxi. 11). On tliis single occasion it is to be observed, that some hun- dreds of chisels were employed for the destruction of the wall ; at least a sufficient number to employ five hundred men. The historian adds, that the work of destruction was easily effected, because, agreeably to an ancient practice, the stones of the wall were not cemented with mortar, but only joined by the interposition of mud or clay : " Nee erat difficile opus, quod csementa non calce durata erant, sed interlita luto, structurae antiquae genere." It is evident that the use of the chisels in this instance was to insert them between the stones so as to remove the clay or mud, and thus to displace the stones. In another passage, where the same author is giving an account of the war between the Romans and Etruscans (ix. 37), he says, " Chisels were distributed among the calones, or ser- vants, to throw down the mound and fill the ditches ; " " Dolabrse calonibus dividuntur ad vallum proruendum fos- sasque implendas," The use of the chisels in this case must have been to loosen the stones and earth in the mound [vallum) as a preparation for filling the ditches. The attendants upon the Roman soldiers, who are called " calones," had the charge of these chisels. They are said to have borne this name from the Grreek word Kakov, wood, because they carried wooden staves (clavas, see Festus *. r, Calones ; fiisfes, Se'rvius, in Vinj. jEu. vi. 1) ; and the explanation which I have given shows, that these were essentially necessary to the use of celts or chisels in military operations. This second pas- refer the reader to the articio"i)oLAiiRA," <r^iAioj/, meiint a chisel or celt; and se- in tG first edition of Dr. W. Smith's Die- condly, to illustrate some of the various tionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, uses to which, according to the testimony in which I have produced evidence, first, of ancient authors, these instruments were to show that dolabra with its diminutive applied. dolabdla, and afxlKa with its diminutive
