What Did a Lictor Actually Do?
Few public servants walked more visibly in the service of Rome than the lictor.
Wherever a Roman magistrate went in an official capacity, lictors might precede him. They cleared a path through crowded streets, summoned or arrested people at his command, guarded him in public, and carried out the punishments he ordered.
Their presence delivered a message before the magistrate spoke: Rome’s authority had arrived.
The Men Who Carried the Fasces
The lictor’s most recognizable object was the fasces, a bundle of wooden rods bound together. In some settings, an axe was included among them.
The rods represented the power to inflict corporal punishment. The axe represented the power of execution. Together they made visible the coercive authority of the magistrate whom the lictor served.
The distinction is important. A lictor didn’t ordinarily decide who to arrest, beat, or execute. That authority belonged to the magistrate, but the lictor made the authority effective.
He was attendant, bodyguard, messenger, and enforcer.
The fasces were therefore more than ceremonial decorations. The rods could be removed from the bundle and used to administer a beating.
Lictors in a Roman Colony
Philippi was a Roman colony governed according to Roman civic forms. A city of its size had two chief municipal magistrates, who were commonly known as duumviri—literally, “two men.” They oversaw public business, administered local justice, and issued orders to the officials serving beneath them.
Lictors accompanied these magistrates and acted on their commands.
In this colony, so proud of its Roman identity, citizens would’ve often seen the magistrates moving through the forum with their attendants, the bundled rods carried before them. The citizens would’ve stepped aside as they approached.
A lictor occupied an unusual social position. He was not the source of Rome’s authority, nor was he one of the colony’s highest officials. Yet he stood close to power and was entrusted to exercise physical force in its name.
He was both servant and symbol.
The Rod-Bearers of Acts 16
Most English translations do not use the word lictor in Acts 16. Instead, they call these men “officers” or sometimes “police.”
The Greek word in Acts 16:35 is rhabdouchoi—“rod-bearers.” It corresponds closely to the Roman lictors who carried the fasces before colonial magistrates.
These rod-bearers appear explicitly on the morning after Paul and Silas have been beaten and imprisoned:
“When morning came, the magistrates sent the police, saying, ‘Let those men go.’”
—Acts 16:35
The same officials were probably responsible for carrying out the magistrates’ earlier order that Paul and Silas be beaten with rods. Acts doesn’t name them, but administering such a punishment belonged naturally to a lictor’s duties.
They had obeyed the magistrates, stripped the prisoners, and inflicted the ordered blows.
Then, the following morning, they were commanded to release them.
Paul refused to let the matter end so quietly. He and Silas were Roman citizens, yet they’d been publicly beaten and imprisoned without a lawful hearing.
Paul demanded that the magistrates who’d ordered the punishment to come themselves and escort them out.
The lictors had carried Rome’s authority into the prison. Paul’s declaration exposed how badly that authority had been misused.
Clement Florus in Oracle of Philippi
In Oracle of Philippi, I imagine one of these unnamed rod-bearers as Clement Florus, a man who’s built his identity upon disciplined service to Rome.
Clement’s position places him near the colony’s most powerful men. He accompanies magistrates through the forum and basilica, clears their path, carries their commands, and performs the punishments they order. His duties have earned him trust and a recognized place within Philippi’s public life.
Until Paul and Silas are brought before the magistrates, Clement has seldom separated obedience from honor. Rome’s laws preserve order. Its magistrates embody that order. His responsibility is to obey.
Then he is commanded to beat two men who have received no proper hearing.
The order to beat them doesn’t transform him immediately. But it does open a wedge between duty and conscience that he can no longer ignore.
What happens when the authority you’ve served acts unjustly? What does obedience make you responsible for?
In the novel’s opening chapters, Clement’s crimson cloak carries Rome’s color.
But how long will his heart carry it?
***
Clement Florus, the fictional lictor at the center of this article, is one of the principal characters in Oracle of Philippi. His duty requires him to uphold Rome’s authority. His conscience eventually asks what that obedience has cost.
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