![]() | ||
The sica was a short sword or large dagger of ancient Illyrians, Thracians and Dacians, also used in Ancient Rome. The name is cognate with sickle, and it was a curved weapon, sharpened on the inside edge. On Trajan's Column the Dacian king Decebalus is depicted committing suicide with one, and the Jewish "sicarii" got their name from the sicae they used to attack Romans and Hebrew Roman sympathizers.
Further detail
According to Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines, tome 4, volume 2 (R–S), Paris, 1926, p. 1300, s.v. sica, the name Sica comes from Proto-Indo-European root sek-, meaning "to cut", "to section".
Roman author Valerius Maximus, III, 2.12, said that sica was the Dacian name for the curved short sword/bigger knife of this type.
In Albanian the knife is called today "Thika" which is similar to "Sica".
The Romans regarded the sica as a distinctive Illyrian weapon. The principal melee weapon of the Illyrians was the Sica.
According to historian John Wilkes:
Although a short curved sword was used by several peoples around the Mediterranean the Romans regarded the sica as a distinct Illyrian weapon used by the stealthy 'assassin' (sicarius)