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On this page: Fasci a – Fascia – Fascinum – Fasti

FASCIA,

the secures should be removed from the fasces, and allowed only one of the consuls to be preceded by the lictors while they were at Rome. (Cic. de Rep. ii. 31 ; Valer. Max. iv. 1. § 1.) The other consul was attended only by a single accensus [AccEN7sus]. When they were out of Rome, and at the head of the army, each of the consuls re­tained the axe in the fasces, and was preceded by his own lictors. (Dionys. v. 19 j Liv. xxiv. 9, xxviii. 27.)

When the decemviri were first appointed, the fasces were only carried before the one who pre­sided for the day (Liv. iii. 33) ; and it was not till the second decemvirate, when they began to act in s. tyrannical manner, that the fasces with the axe were carried before each of the ten. (Liv. iii. 36.) The fasces and secures were, however, carried before the dictator even in the city (Liv. ii. 18) : he was preceded by 24 lictors, and the magister equitum by six.

The praetors were preceded in the city by two lictors with the fasces (Censorin. De Die Natal. 24 ; Cic. Agrar. ii. 34) ; but out of Rome and at the head of an army by six, with the fasces and secures, whence they are called by the Greek writers crrpaT7]yol i^aTreAe/ceis. (Appian, Syr, 15 ; Polyb. ii. 24. § 6, iii. 40. §9, 106. § 6.) The proconsuls also were allowed, in the time of Ulpian, six fasces. (Dig. 1. tit. 16. s. 14.) The tribunes of the plebs, the aediles and quaestors, had no lictors in the city (Pint. Quaest. Rom. 81 ; Gell. xiii. 32) ; but in the provinces the quaestors were permitted to have the fasces. (Cic. Pro Plane.

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The lictors carried the fasces on their shoulders,

as is seen in the coin of Brutus given above ; and when an inferior magistrate met one who was higher in rank, the lictors lowered their fasces to him. This was done by Valerius Publicola, when he addressed the people (Cic. de JRep. ii. 31 ; Liv. ii. 7 ; Valer. Max. iv. 1. § 1) ; and hence came the expression submittere fasces in the sense of to yield, to confess one's self inferior to another. (Cic. Brut. 6.)

When a general had gained a victory, and had been saluted as Imperator by his soldiers, his fasces were always crowned with laurel. (Cic. ad Alt. viii. 3. §5, de Div. i. 28 ; Caes. Sell. Civ. iii. 71.)

FASCIA (raivla), dim. FASCIOLA, a band or fillet of cloth, worn, 1. round the head as an ensign of royalty (Sueton. Jul. 79) [diadema ; woodcut to falx] : 2. by women over the breast (Ovid, De Art. Amat. iii. 622 ; Propert. iv. 10, 49 ; Fascia Pectoralis, Mart. xiv. 134) [stro-phium] : 3. round the legs and feet, especially by women (see the woodcut under the article libra). Cicero reproached Clodius for wearing fasciae upon his feet, and the Calantica, a female ornament, upon his head (ap. Non. Marc. xiv. 2). Afterwards, when the toga had fallen into disuse, and the shorter pallium was worn in its stead, so that the legs were naked and exposed, fasciae crurales became common even with the male sex. (Hor. Sat. ii. 3. 255 ; Val. Max. vi. 2. § 7 ; Grat. Cyneg. 338.) The emperor Alexander Sevems (Lamprid. Alex. Sev. 40) always used them, even although, when in town, he wore the toga. Quin-tilian, nevertheless, asserts that the adoption of them could only be excused on the plea of infirm health. (Inst. Or. xi. 3.) White fasciae, worn

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FASTI.

by men (Val. Max. I. c. ; Phaed. v. 7. 37), were n sign of extraordinary refinement in dress : the mode of cleaning them was by rubbing them with a white tenacious earth, resembling our pipe-clay (fasciae cretatae, Cic. ad Att. ii. 3). The finer fasciae, worn by ladies, were purple. (Cic. de Harusp. Resp. 21.) The bandages wound about the legs, as shown in the illuminations of ancient MSS., prove that the Roman usage was generally adopted in Europe during the middle ages.

On the use of fasciae in the nursing of children (Plant. True. v. 13) see incunabula. [J. Y.]

FASCI A (raii/ia), in architecture, signifies (by an obvious analogy with the ordinary meaning of the word) any long flat surface of wood, stone, or marble, such as the band which divides the archi­trave from the frieze in the Doric order, and the surfaces into which the architrave itself is divided in the Ionic and Corinthian orders. (See episty-lium, and the cuts under columna.) [P. S.]

FASCINUM (fioffKavia), fascination, enchant­ment. The belief that some persons had the power of injuring others by their looks, was as prevalent among the Greeks and Romans as it is among the superstitious in modern times. The o(f>da\pbs pdarfcavos., or evil eye, is frequently men­tioned by ancient writers. (Alciphr. Ep. i. 15 ; Heliod. Aethiop. iii. 7 ; compare Plin. //. N. vii. 2.) Plutarch, in his Symposium (v. 7), has a separate chapter irepl t&v KaraSaffKaivsiv \eyo-fjcevcw9 Kal fidffKavov e%€j*/ oc/>0aA/^j'. The evil eye was sup­posed to injure children particular!}', but some­times cattle also j whence Virgil (Eel. iii. 103) says,

" Nescio quis teneros oculos mihi fascinat agnum."

Various amulets were used to avert the influenco of the evil eye. The most common of these ap­pears to have been the phallus, called by the Romans fascinum, which was hung round the necks of children (turpicida res., Varr. DeLing. Lat. vii. 97, eel. Miiller). Pliny (//. N. xix. 19. § 1) also says that Satyrica signa, by which he means the phallus, were placed in gardens and on hearths as a protection against the fascinations of the envious ; and we learn from Pollux (viii. 118) that smiths were accustomed to place the same figures before their forges with the same design. Sometimes other objects were employed for this purpose. Peisistratus is said to have hung the figure of a kind of grasshopper before the Acro­polis as a preservative against fascination. (Hesych. s. v.

Another common mode of averting fascination was by spitting into the folds of one's own dress. (Theocr. vi. 39 ; Plin. //. N. xxviii. 7 ; Lucian, Navig. 15. vol. iii. p. 259, cd. Reitz.)

According to Pliny (//. N. xxviii. 7), Fascinug was the name of a god, who was worshipped among the Roman sacra by the Vestal virgins, and was placed under the chariot of those who triumphed as a protection against fascination ; by which he means in all probability that the phallus was placed under the chariot. (Miiller, Arcfidol. der Kunst, § 436. 1, 2 ; Bottiger, Klein. Schr. iii. p. Ill ; Becker, Charades, vol. ii. pp. 109, 291.)

FASTI. Fas signifies divine law : the epithet

fastus is properly applied to anything in accordance

with divine law. and hence those days upon which

legal business might, without impiety (sinepiaczdo)^

be transacted before the praetor, were technically