Crossword clues for lictor
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Lictor \Lic"tor\ (l[i^]k"t[o^]r), n. [L.] (Rom. Antiq.) An officer who bore an ax and fasces or rods, as ensigns of his office. His duty was to attend the chief magistrates when they appeared in public, to clear the way, and cause due respect to be paid to them, also to apprehend and punish criminals.
Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power.
--Milton.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
late 14c., from Latin lictor, literally "binder," from past participle stem of *ligere "to bind, collect," collateral form of ligare (see ligament).
Wiktionary
n. An officer in ancient Rome, attendant on a consul or magistrate, who bore the fasces and was responsible for punishing criminals.
Wikipedia
Usage examples of "lictor".
Given a sufficient flow of wine, the sight of bodyguard and lictor might have been enough to start a riot, the Antiochenes being prone to outbreak when their passions were aroused by drink and women.
Forum he walked behind his lictors, never once craning his neck to verify what awaited him at the bottom of the Clivus Argentarius.
I informed the lictors of the thirty Curiae that for this day I was assuming the special imperium of my grain duties, which did permit me to cross the sacred boundary before I accepted my provinces.
Aware that crime and disease would both be on the increase, Pompey devoted some of his splendid organizational talents to diminishing crime and disease by hiring ex-gladiators to police the alleys and byways of the city, by making the College of Lictors keep an eye on the shysters and tricksters who frequented the Forum Romanum and other major marketplaces, by enlarging the swimming holes of the Trigarium, and plastering vacant walls with warning notices about good drinking water, urinating and defaecating anywhere but in the public latrines, clean hands and bad food.
It took Varro Lucullus and his six lictors to drag Caesar off him, though some men in the crowd wondered afterward at the inertia of the nine tribunes of the plebs, who made no move to help Hybrida at all.
A contingent of coolies kowtowed along the path to the waiting sedan chair, then scrambled to lead the way across the square as his escort of lictors formed a procession around him.
As Cotta and the senators with their escort of lictors and servants rode away into the dense shadows cast by the moon, Aurelius stood clearly delineated by firelight and moonlight, his arm raised in farewell.
Otherwise, thought Caesar, secretly grinning as his lictors cleared a path for him through the ibises, they are the biggest nuisances in all creation.
When the boat tied up and the lictors climbed out the citizens backed away a little, obviously taken aback at such calmness, such alien but impressive splendor.
Once his twenty-four lictors had lined up in a column of twelve pairs, Caesar made light work of getting out himself, then stood arranging the folds of his toga fussily.
Yet here definitely stood a Roman with twenty-four lictors, clad in a ludicrous purple-bordered white blanket, with some leaves on his head and a plain cylinder of ivory resting on his bare right forearm between his cupped hand and the crook of his elbow.
Caesar, beginning to walk behind his lictors again, which forced the captain to send a man running on ahead to guide the party.
Caesar and his lictors alone in the room, the captain hurried off, presumably to see who he could find to receive them.
I might have one of my lictors pluck a rod from his bundle and administer it.
Royal Enclosure, Caesar poked and pried everywhere during those two days, escorted only by his lictors, indifferent to danger.