Ликторы в Древнем Риме: телохранители и слуги магистратов

Bodyguard and attendant to ancient Roman magistrates

A lictor (possibly from Latin ligare, meaning 'to bind') was a Roman civil servant who was an attendant and bodyguard to a magistrate who held imperium. Roman records describe lictors as having existed since the Roman Kingdom, and may have originated with the Etruscans.

The lictors were instituted by Rome's first king, Romulus, who appointed twelve lictors to attend him. Livy refers to two competing traditions for the reason that Romulus chose that number of lictors. The first version is that twelve was the number of birds that appeared in the augury, which had portended the kingdom to Romulus. The second version, favoured by Livy, is that the number of lictors was borrowed from the Etruscan kings, who had one lictor appointed from each of their twelve states.

Originally, lictors were chosen from the plebeians, but through most of Roman history, they seemed to have been freedmen. Centurions from the legions were also automatically eligible to become lictors on retirement from the army. They were, however, definitely Roman citizens, since they wore togas inside Rome. A lictor had to be a strongly built man, capable of physical work. Lictors were exempted from military service, received a fixed salary (of 600 sestertii, in the beginning of the Empire), and were organized in a corporation. Usually, they were personally chosen by the magistrate they were supposed to serve, but it is also possible that they were drawn by lots. Lictors were associated with comitia curiata, as in its later form, the thirty curiae were represented by a single lictor each.

The lictor curiatus (: lictores curiati) was a special kind of lictor who did not carry rods or fasces and whose main tasks were religious. There were approximately thirty of them, serving at the command of the pontifex maximus, the high priest of Rome. They were present at sacrifices where they carried or guided sacrificial animals to the altars. Vestal Virgins, flamines , and other high ranking priests were entitled to be escorted and protected by lictores curiati. In the Empire, women of the imperial family were usually followed by two of this kind of lictor. The lictores curiati were also responsible to summon the Comitia Curiata and to maintain order during its procedures.