LĬBURNA, LĬBURNĬCA, a light vessel, which derived its name from
the Liburni. The ships of this people were of great assistance to
Augustus at the battle of Actium; and experience having shown their
efficiency, vessels of a similar kind were built and called by the
name of the people.
LICTOR, a public officer, who attended on the chief Roman
magistrates. The number which waited on the different magistrates
is stated in the article FASCES. The office of lictor is said to
have been derived by Romulus from the Etruscans. The lictors went
before the magistrates one by one in a line; he who went last or
next to the magistrate was called _proximus lictor_, to whom the
magistrate gave his commands; and as this lictor was always the
principal one, we also find him called _primus lictor_. The lictors
had to inflict punishment on those who were condemned, especially
in the case of Roman citizens; for foreigners and slaves were
punished by the Carnifex; and they also probably had to assist in
some cases in the execution of a decree or judgment in a civil suit.
The lictors likewise commanded persons to pay proper respect to a
magistrate passing by, which consisted in dismounting from horseback,
uncovering the head, standing out of the way, &c. The lictors were
originally chosen from the plebs, but afterwards appear to have been
generally freedmen, probably of the magistrate on whom they attended.
Lictors were properly only granted to those magistrates who had the
Imperium. Consequently, the tribunes of the plebs never had lictors,
nor several of the other magistrates. Sometimes, however, lictors
were granted to persons as a mark of respect or for the sake of
protection. Thus by a law of the Triumvirs every vestal virgin was
accompanied by a lictor, whenever she went out, and the honour of
one or two lictors was usually granted to the wives and other female
members of the Imperial family. There were also thirty lictors called
_Lictores Curiati_, whose duty it was to summon the curiae to the
comitia curiata; and when these meetings became little more than a
form, their suffrages were represented by the thirty lictors.
LĬGŬLA, a Roman measure of fluid capacity, containing one-fourth
of the CYATHUS. It signifies _a spoonful_, like _cochlear_; only
the _ligula_ was larger than the _cochlear_. The spoon which was
called _ligula_, or _lingula_ (dim. of _lingua_) from its shape, was
used for various purposes, especially to clean out small and narrow
vessels, and to eat jellies and such things. The word is also used
for the leather tongue of a shoe.