Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Fascis

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

FASCIS (φάκελος and φάκελλος). Accurately, a packet of things, but more especially wood (Hirt. B. G. viii. 15. Tac. Ann. xiii. 35.), wattled together, and made up into a faggot or fascine, for the convenience of carriage; as in the illustration (Fascis/1.1), from a sepulchral painting of the Christian era; and contradistinguished from SARCINA, which is applied to such things as are wrapped up into a pack or bundle.

2. In the plural. Fasces (αἱ ῥάβδοι). The fasces carried by the lictors before certain of the Roman magistrates; with which malefactors were beaten before execution. They consisted of a number of rods cut from the birch (Plin. H. N. xvi. 30.), or elm tree (Plaut. Asin. iii. 2. 29.), wattled together, and bound round with thongs into the form of a fascine. During the reign of the kings, and under the first years of the republic, an axe (securis) was likewise inserted amongst the rods; but after the consulate of Publicola, no magistrate, except a dictator (Liv. ii. 18.) was permitted to use the fasces with an axe in the city of Rome (Cic. de Rep. ii. 31. Val. Max. iv. 1. 1.); the employment of both together being restricted to the consuls at the head of their armies (Liv. xxiv. 9.), and to the quaestors in their provinces. (Cic. Planc. 41.) The illustration (Fascis/2.1) affords an example of the fasces as they appeared with the axe inserted, from a bas-relief of the Mattei palace at Rome.

3. Fasces praeferre and submittere. The lictor walked before the magistrate to whose service he was attached with a rod (virga) in his right hand, and the fasces on his left shoulder, as shown by the annexed figure (Fascis/3.1), from a bas-relief in the Museum of Verona. This is expressed by the phrase fasces praeferre; but if a magistrate of inferior rank met a superior, the lictor removed the fasces from his shoulder, and lowered them, as a mark of respect, till the great man had passed, as our soldiers ground arms in the presence of great personages. This is expressed by the phrase fasces submittere.

4. Fasces laureati. When a general had achieved a victory, he had the fasces, which were borne before him, decorated with laurel leaves (laureati, Cic. Div. i. 28. Id. Att. viii. 3.); and the emperors also added a similar ornament to their own fasces in compliment to any of their officers who had obtained a brilliant success. (Tac. Ann. xiii. 3.) The method adopted was, upon such occasions, either to insert a branch of laurel into the top of the rods, as shown by the left-hand figure in the annexed engraving (Fascis/4.1), representing the fasces carried by a lictor in attendance on the Emperor Vespasian, from a bas-relief; or to fasten a laurel wreath upon them, as in the right-hand example, from a consular coin.

5. Fasces versi. In mourning, or at the funeral of commanders, the fasces were reversed (versi, Tac. Ann. iii. 2.); that is, carried with the axe downwards, as our soldiers carry their muskets upon similar occasions; and sometimes, as at the funeral of Drusus, the staves were broken (fracti fasces, Pedo Albin. El. i. 177.).

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  Fascis/1.1
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  Fascis/2.1
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  Fascis/3.1
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  Fascis/4.1