Siobhan Quin
Senior Specialist
Various Properties
Lot 26*
A Roman bronze appliqué of two lictors
3 July 2025, 11:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £7,040 inc. premium
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Anna Marston
Associate Specialist
A Roman bronze appliqué of two lictors
Circa 1st-2nd Century A.D.
12.2cm high
12.2cm high
Footnotes
Provenance:
Private French collection, acquired circa 1980.
Anonymous sale; Hôtel des Ventes de Monte-Carlo, Monte Carlo, 19 January 2022, lot 166.
Acquired by the current owner at the above sale.
A lictor was a civil servant acting as bodyguard and attendant to the magistrate, carrying their fasces, which was an axe bound to a bundle of rods and could be used to intimidate the crowd.
For a Roman bronze figure of a lictor, wearing a toga and carrying the fasces, see an example in the British Museum, acc.no.1983,1229.1 and a Roman marble relief relief from Iulia Concordia (Concordia Sagittaria), depicting three lictors carrying their fasces, from the National Museum of Concordia, Portogruaro, Italy. For a discussion on the use of fasces as a symbol of power, authority, justice and unity in antiquity, as well as the post-antique and modern era, T. Corey Brennan; The Fasces: Ancient Rome's Most Dangerous Political Symbol, in Antigone Journal (originally published in Swedish as Fasces – 2700 år av det antika Roms mest framträdande politiska symbol in Medusa: Svensk tidskrift för antiken (2022:2) 1–11).