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LICTORS (lictores)

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Originally appearing in Volume V16, Page 588 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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LICTORS (lictores) , in See also:Roman antiquities, a class of the attendants (apparitores) upon certain Roman and provincial magistrates.' As an institution (supposed by some to have been borrowed from See also:Etruria) they went back to the See also:regal See also:period and continued to exist till imperial See also:time's. The See also:majority of the See also:city lictors were freedmen; they formed a See also:corporation divided into decuries, from which the lictors of the magistrates in See also:office were See also:drawn; provincial officials had the nomination of their own. In See also:Rome they wore the toga, perhaps girded up; on a See also:campaign and at the celebration of a See also:triumph, the red military cloak (sagulum); at funerals, See also:black. ' As representatives of magistrates who possessed the imperium, they carried the See also:fasces and axes in front of them (see FASCES). They were exempt from military service; received a fixed See also:salary; theoretically they were nominated for a See also:year, but really for See also:life. They were the See also:constant attendants, both in and out of the See also:house, of the See also:magistrate to whom they were attached. They walked before him in See also:Indian See also:file, cleared a passage for him (summovere) through the See also:crowd, and saw that he was received with the marks of respect due to his See also:rank. They Stood by him when he took his seat on the tribunal; mounted guard before his house, against the See also:wall of which they stood the fasces; summoned offenders before him, seized, See also:bound and scourged them, and (in earlier times) carried out the See also:death See also:sentence. It should be noted that directly a magistrate entered an allied, See also:independent See also:state, he was obliged to dispense with nis lictors. The See also:king had twelve lictors; each of the consuls (immediately after their institution) twelve, subsequently limited to' the monthly officiating See also:consul, although See also:Caesar appears to have restored the See also:original arrangement; the See also:dictator, as representing both consuls, twenty-four; the emperors twelve, until the time of See also:Domitian, who'had' twenty-four. The See also:Flamen Dialis, each of the Vestals, the magister-vicorum (over-seer of the sections into which the city was divided) were also accompanied by lictors. These lictors were probably supplied from the lictores curiatii, See also:thirty in number, whose functions were specially religious, one of them being in' attendance on the See also:pontifex See also:maximus.

They originally summoned the See also:

comitia curiata, and when its meetings became merely.a formality, acted as the representatives of that See also:assembly. Lictors were also assigned to private individuals at the celebration of funeral See also:games, and 'to the aediles at the games provided by them and the theatrical representations under their supervision. For the fullest See also:account of the lictors, see See also:Mommsen, Romisches Staatsrecht, i. 355, 374 (3rd ed,•t887).

End of Article: LICTORS (lictores)

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