He dared, O thou earth and ye gods, first in this place, within the wall, in the Forum, in the senate-house, on the Capitol, at one and the same time to array himself in the purple-bordered garb, to gird a sword on his thigh, to employ lictors, and to be escorted by armed soldiers.

Now Valerius, as if he possessed the authority to do so, was ordering the lictors to depart from one who was but a private citizen, when Appius, whose spirits were now broken, alarmed for his life, betook himself into a house in the vicinity of the forum, unobserved by his enemies, with his head covered up.

Appius, now considering that the crisis was already nigh at hand, when their authority would be overpowered, unless the violence of these were resisted with equal boldness, said, "It will be better for you not to utter a word on any subject, except the subject of discussion"; and against Valerius, when he refused to be silent for a private individual, he commanded a lictor to proceed.

I sent a lictor and a dozen men to Norbanus' house, but he is missing and has not been seen, although it is known, and you admit, that he dined with you last night at Daphne.

When he takes state upon him with the public, therefore, in consequence of his office, he really is guilty of as ludicrous a blunder as the worthy American Consul, in one of the Hanse towns, who painted the Roman fasces on the pannel of his buggy, and insisted upon calling his foot-boy and clerk his lictors.

All the editions from Xylander to Dindorf gave "six lictors", erroneously, as was pointed out by Mommsen (Romisches Staatsrecht, 12, p. 369, note 4).

Beside this action with reference to the finances he established a board of three ex-prætors to collect debts owing the government, granting them lictors and the usual force of assistants.

And his silence was very natural, for it occurred to him to reflect that Antony possessed the lictors and the purple-bordered vesture in accordance with the customs of our ancestors in regard to masters of horse, and that he was using the sword and the soldiers perforce against the rebels.

Now not only the multitude, but Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius, the leaders of the multitude, stood around Icilius and, having repulsed the lictor, declared, that, if Appius should proceed according to law, they would protect Icilius from one who was but a private citizen; if he should attempt to employ force, that even in that case they would be no unequal match for him.

Then let me see the man who will dare to strike a lictor, when he shall know that that person, whose authority he has insulted, has sole and absolute power to flog and behead him.

Cinna told his lictors to seize this second mutineer, and in the tumult that arose Cinna was slain.

Then Volero, being both himself a man of great bodily strength, and aided by his partisans, having thrust back the lictor, retired into the thickest part of the crowd, where the outcry of those who expressed their indignation was loudest, crying out: "I appeal, and implore the protection of the commons; assist me, fellow-citizens: assist me, fellow-soldiers: it is no use to wait for the tribunes, who themselves stand in need of your aid."

However, unless the father attended on the following day, he gave notice to Icilius and to men like Icilius, that, as the framer of it, he would maintain his own law, as a decemvir, his firmness: that he would certainly not assemble the lictors of his colleagues to put down the promoters of sedition; that he would be content with his own.

The Gauls, and especially the multitude which encircled the consul's body, as if deprived of reason, cast their javelins at random without execution, some became so stupid as not to think of either fighting or flying, while on the other side, Livius, the pontiff, to whom Decius had transferred his lictors, with orders to act as propraetor, cried out aloud, that "the Romans were victorious, being saved by the death of their consul.

I myself am not indisposed to follow the opinion of those, who are inclined to believe that it was from the neighbouring Etruscansfrom whom the curule chair and purple-bordered toga were borrowedthat the apparitors of this class, as well as the number itself, were introduced: and that the Etruscans employed such a number because, as their king was elected from twelve states in common, each state assigned him one lictor.

Then, indeed, those of the fathers who attended the consuls, exclaiming against it as an intolerable insult, hurried down from the tribunal to assist the lictor.

The praetor of Praeneste, through fear, had been tardy in bringing forward his men from the reserve to the front: he, walking before his tent, ordered him to be called, and then bade the lictor to make ready his axe, on which, the Praenestine standing frightened almost to death, he said, "Here, lictor, cut away this stump, it is troublesome to people as they walk;"