Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Malleus

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

MALLEUS (σφῦρα). A mallet; i. e. a hammer with a large wooden head, employed by gold beaters, bookbinders, &c. for beating out into fine plates or leaves (Plin. H. N. xvi. 84. xiii. 26.); by carpenters, shipwrights, masons, &c. for driving the chisel when the blows require to be fine and tempered (Plaut. Merc. ii. 3. 57.); as a beetle for beating out hemp (Plin. H. N. xix. 13.); or, in short, for any purpose to which the same object is applied at the present day. Both the examples annexed (Malleus/1.1) are copied from the tomb-stones of Roman artizans.

2. A large wooden mallet used by butchers, and by the Popa at a sacrifice, for knocking down the ox before its throat was pierced by the knife of the cultrarius. (Ovid. Met. ii. 625. Suet. Cal. 32.) The example (Malleus/2.1) is copied from a small structure at Rome, erected by the Silversmiths' Company as a compliment to Septimius Severus on which it appears amongst various other implements of sacrifice.

3. A large mallet used by smiths at the anvil, the head of which was either formed entirely of iron, or of wood bound with iron, as in the annexed example (Malleus/3.1), which represents the mallet used by one of the smiths delineated at p. 283., from a Roman bas-relief, upon a larger scale. Plin. H. N. xxxiv. 20. Ib. 41.

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  Malleus/1.1
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  Malleus/2.1
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  Malleus/3.1