fascis

Forms

fascis m (genitive fascis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *faski- (“bundle”).^[2] De Vaan calls it an Italo-Celtic word, *bʰaski(o)-, without a wider Indo-European etymology; cognate with Old Irish basc (“necklace”), Welsh baich (“burden”) and Breton bec'h (“load”).^[2][1][3] The OLD and Lewis and Short compare Ancient Greek φάκελος (phákelos, “bundle”), but de Vaan thinks it and the gloss βάσκιοι (báskioi, “bundles of osiers”) unrelated, because their forms vary irregularly within Greek.^[3][4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it of the lictors' rods: in the Epidicus a slave is told that all his “praetorship” lacks is two lictors and “two elm bundles of rods”.^[3][5][2]

Semantic evolution

It is a bundle of sticks or brushwood, a faggot (Sisenna), and a bundle carried as a load, as Virgil's “I'll relieve you of this burden”.^[3][4] Most often, in the plural, it is the bundle of rods, usually with an axe, carried by the lictors before the higher magistrates, and so the power or office of a magistrate (Cicero) and in Lucan the magistrates themselves.^[3][1]

English took the plural as fasces in the 1590s.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of the lictors' rods.^[3][5]
• 120–67 BC – Sisenna of bundles of brushwood.^[3][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of magistrates' power.^[3][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of a burden.^[3][5]
• 1590s – English fasces.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bundle (of sticks), a faggot; a packet.^[3][1][4]
2. A load, burden.^[3][1]
3. (usually plural) The fasces, a bundle of rods with an axe carried by lictors before a magistrate.^[3][1]
4. (plural) The power or office of a magistrate, (Lucan) the magistrates.^[3][1]

Word family

• fasciculus
• fasciger
• fascīna
• fasciātim

Related words

• fascia
• sarcina
• English fasces

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com