Rom. Antiq. Also 4 littour. [L.; perh. agent-n. f. lig-, root of ligāre to bind.] An officer whose functions were to attend upon a magistrate, bearing the fasces before him, and to execute sentence of judgment upon offenders.
A dictator had twenty-four lictors, a consul twelve.
1382. Wyclif, Acts xvi. 35. The magistrates senten littoures, that ben mynistris of ponysching, seyinge, Dismitte, or delyuere, ȝe tho men.
1586. Sir E. Hoby, Polit. Disc. Truth, xxiv. 114, marg. The fagots of the licturs.
1606. Shaks., Ant. & Cl., V. ii. 214. Sawcie Lictors Will catch at vs like Strumpets.
1623. Cockeram, Lictor, a Serieant, a Hangman.
1674. Milton, P. R., IV. 65. Lictors and rods the ensigns of thir power.
1838. Arnold, Hist. Rome, I. xv. 302. Each [decemvir] was attended by his twelve lictors, who carried not the rods only but the axe.
1843. Macaulay, Lake Regillus. i. Ho, lictors, clear the way!
b. transf.
1638. Penit. Conf., viii. (1657), 223. God shall not greatly need any Lictors or Tormenters.
1667. Causes Decay Chr. Piety, ii. 31. They … become their own Lictors and make that their choice which is their extremest punishment.
1686. J. Scott, Chr. Life (1747), III. 352. Satan, as the Lictor or Executioner of our Saviour, immediately seized the Criminal, and inflicted on him some bodily Disease or Torment.
1883. R. W. Dixon, Mano, III. ii. 120. A thousand justices in judgment sit, A thousand lictors deal most righteous blows.
Hence † Lictorian a., pertaining to a lictor.
1656. in Blount, Glossogr.
