noun
definition
A Roman symbol of judicial authority consisting of a bundle of wooden sticks, with an axe blade embedded in the centre; used also as a symbol of fascism
Examples of fasces in a Sentence
The place is little mentioned in ancient literature, though Silius Italicus tells us that it was hence that the Romans took their magisterial insignia (fasces, curule chair, purple toga and brazen trumpets), and it was undoubtedly one of the twelve cities of Etruria.
Its pliant and flexible branches are made into brooms; and in ancient Rome the fasces of the lictors, with which they cleared the way for the magistrates, were made up of birch rods.
The lictors and the fasces were so inseparably connected that they came to be used as synonymous terms. The fasces originally represented the power over life and limb possessed by the kings, and after the abolition of the monarchy, the consuls, like the kings, were preceded by twelve fasces.
A dictator, as taking the place of the two consuls, had 24 fasces (including the axe even within the city); most of the other magistrates had fasces varying in number, with the exception of the censors, who, as possessing no executive authority, had none.
Fasces were given to the Flamen Dialis and (after 42 B.C.) even to the Vestals.
During the times of the republic, a victorious general, who had been saluted by the title of imperator by his soldiers, had his fasces crowned with laurel (Cicero, Pro Ligario, 3).
The massively moulded ormolu stair balustrade of Northumberland House, now at 49 Prince's Gate; the candelabra at Windsor and Buckingham Palace, produced in Birmingham by the firm of Messenger; the cast-iron railings with javelin heads and lictors' fasces, the tripods, Corinthian column standard lamps and candelabra, boat-shaped oil lamps and tent-shaped lustres with classic mountings, are examples of the metal-work of a style which, outside the eccentric Brighton Pavilion and excursions into Gothic and Elizabethan, was universally accepted in the United Kingdom from the days of the Regency until after the accession of Victoria.
They stood by him when he took his seat on the tribunal; mounted guard before his house, against the wall of which they stood the fasces; summoned offenders before him, seized, bound and scourged them, and (in earlier times) carried out the death sentence.
Later, under the empire, when the emperor received the title for life on his accession, it became restricted to him, and the laurel was regarded as distinctive of the imperial fasces (see Mommsen, Romisches Staatsrecht, i., 188 7, p. 373).
As representatives of magistrates who possessed the imperium, they carried the fasces and axes in front of them (see Fasces).
From the latter point of view - as generalissimo of the forces of Rome, he had the right to the insignia of the commander (the laurel wreath and the fasces), and to the protection of a bodyguard, the praetoriani.
Vichy flag, during WWII, the Vichy regime inserted or defaced the white stripe of the tricolour with fasces or a bundle of sticks, a recognized symbol of power.