LICTOR

a public officer, who attended on the chief Roman magistrates. The number which waited on the different magistrates is stated in the article Fasces . The office of lictor is said to have been derived by Romulus from the Etruscans. The lictors went before the magistrates one by one in a line; he who went last or next to the magistrate was called proximus lictor , to whom the magistrate gave his commands; and as this lictor was always the principal one, we also find him called primus lictor . The lictors had to inflict punishment on those who were condemned, especially in the case of Roman citizens; for foreigners and slaves were punished by the Carnifex; and they also probably had to a ist in some cases in the execution of a decree or judgment in a civil suit. The lictors likewise commanded persons to pay proper respect to a magistrate pa ing by, which consisted in dismounting from horseback, uncovering the head, standing out of the way, . The lictors were originally chosen from the plebs, but afterwards appear to have been generally freedmen, probably of the magistrate on whom they attended. Lictors were properly only granted to those magistrates who had the Imperium. Consequently, the tribunes of the plebs never had lictors, nor several of the other magistrates. Sometimes, however, lictors were granted to persons as a mark of respect or for the sake of protection. Thus by a law of the Triumvirs every vestal virgin was accompanied by a lictor, whenever she went out, and the honour of one or two lictors was usually granted to the wives and other female members of the Imperial family. There were also thirty lictors called Lictores Curiati , whose duty it was to summon the curiae to the comitia curiata; and when these meetings became little more than a form, their suffrages were represented by the thirty lictors.