sarculum
The hoe, in several sizes and weights, was a common iron farming tool (
see the
variety of
Roman farming implements) that was in widespread use in the Roman world by
farmers for breaking up soil and weeding (see the Smith College Museum
exhibit;
see also Pliny the Elder,
Naturalis Historia 19.33).
Juvenal lists sarcula in a later
satire (Satura 15.166),
where he again employs the metaphor of farming implements to address the theme
of evils in contemporary Rome.