FASCES

rods bound in the form of a bundle, and containing an axe ( securis ) in the middle, the iron of which projected from them. They were usually made of birch, but sometimes also of the twigs of the elm. They are said to have been derived from Vetulonia, a city of Etruria. Twelve were carried before each of the kings by twelve lictors; and on the expulsion of the Tarquins, one of the consuls was preceded by twelve lictors with the fasces and secures, and the other by the same number of lictors with the fasces only, or, according to some accounts, with crowns around them. But P. Valerius Publicola, who gave to the people the right of provocatio, ordained that the secures should be removed from the fasces, and allowed only one of the consuls to be preceded by the lictors while they were at Rome. The other consul was attended only by a single accensus [ Accensus ]. When they were out of Rome, and at the head of the army, each of the consuls retained the axe in the fasces, and was preceded by his own lictors, as before the time of Valerius. The fasces and secures were, however, carried before the dictator even in the city, and he was also preceded by twenty-four lictors, and the magister equitum by six. The praetors were preceded in the city by two lictors with the fasces; but out of Rome and at the head of an army by six, with the fasces and secures. The tribunes of the plebs, the aediles and quaestors, had no lictors in the city, but in the provinces the quaestors were permitted to have the fasces. The lictors carried the fasces on their shoulders; and when an inferior magistrate met one who was higher in rank, the lictors lowered their fasces to him. This was done by Valerius Publicola, when he addre ed the people, and hence came the expre ion submittere fasces in the sense of to yield, to confe one’s self inferior to another. When a general had gained a victory, and had been saluted as Imperator by his soldiers, he usually crowned his fasces with laurel. IMG:6459379820872971714_ill175.jpg: Fasces. (From the original in the Capitol at Rome.)