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Since from the third century AD, the axe, due to the influence of the Germanic auxiliaries in the army, had become a regular weapon of the Roman Infantryman. The marching army of Constantine the Great, represented on the frieze of his arch erected in Rome in about 313 AD, depict Dromedarii of the Emperor's army equipped with such a weapon. Vegetius, writing at the end of the 4th century AD, remembers as the securis was listed among the weapons of the regular infantryman.
From the Latin word securis the axe was called, in the Greek medieval language of the Eastern Roman army, tzikourion or Tzhkourion. The word could be referred in equal way, to every kind of axe used both from cavalry or infantry. At the end of ninth century AD, the so called Constantine tactica (p.15), provides that each cavalryman should be equipped with a double edged axe. The tactica of the Emperor Leo (VI,11) around 900 AD, insists on the circumstance that every cavalryman should be armed with a double edge axe, furnished with a long spear-shaped blade and pointed, hanging from the saddle in a leather case. Always the Emperor Leo provides for the infantry (VI, 25): "Then You will arm the infantry SKOUTATOI, who the ancients called oplitai, in a way that they should wear sword, spear and, when necessity arises, a long and wide shield, called a THUREOS, completely round. The shields should be all of identical color following the BANDON or TAGMA of belonging; moreover they should have a helmet furnished on the top of a small plume, slings, double-edged axes, whose blade should be as a sword's blade, from one side, and from the other side as the point of a spear, which will be worn in leather cases, or other axes having a cutting side and round the other side, and still other axes double edged as the bipennes".
The Roman soldiers were trained to use their axes for hand-to-hand combat as well as for throwing. So Const. Tact. p.6 advises to train the soldiers to throw the Javelin, the short missile and the axe. The Eastern Roman warriors used therefore, single edged or double edged axes.
The double axes were commonly called ai pelekeis. The single-edged were called monopeluka, and the Liber of Ceremoniis of Constantine Porphyrogenitus informs us that they were used by the Macedonians of the Imperial HETAIREIA. In fact the medieval Greeks called bi-pennis the "...half of the axe, with the blade only on one side, which they called DISTRALION" (Salmasius, Interpretes Homeri,p.200). This axe, "dextrale" in iron, is mentioned under the name DISTRALION MONOPELUKON in notation also to other Imperial Guardsmen, the SPATHAROKANDIDATOI and the SPATHARIOI (De Cer.I, 148: "The spaqarokandidatoi wear their maniakia (wide torques around the neck), their shield and the single-edged axes; the spaqarioi their shields and axes, and both are in Skaramangion (a officer Court dress). These axes were called DISTRALIA just for the reason that they were worn from the bodyguards with the right hand, while the spear was usually worn by the left hand. So the High Imperial officer called the DROUNGARIOS THES VIGHLES wore, in the Ceremonies, his sword (spaqion), his club (maglabion) and his axe (tzikourion), leaning on his right shoulder (De Cer. II, 524).
Axes are also called eteropelekeis. This was a shafted axe or a spear armed with an axe in a way still used in the Persian Court of 1708. This last design is different from the Leo description (Tactica VI,11) only because the opposite side to the axe blade is arched, while the Roman axe mentioned in Leo seems to have a straight blade. However, an axe found in the Holy Palace from the fourth century AD, shows a surprising similarity to the Persian axes and confirms one of the three kind of axes described by Leo.
The axe, used until the end of the Byzantine Roman Empire, was the main weapon of the famous Varangians, the Nordic bodyguard of the Emperors of Byzantium.
Undoubtedly, the axe was one of the more feared weapons to go against in battle during the Byzantine Roman Period. The effects of its use were always severe and gory.