Rods bound in the form of a bundle, and containing an axe in the middle, the iron of which projected from them. These rods were carried by lictors before the superior magistrates at Rome, and are often represented on the reverse of consular coins. The following woodcuts give the reverses of four consular coins; in the first of which we see the lictors carrying the fasces on their shoulders; in the second, two fasces, and between them a sella curulis; in the third, two fasces crowned, with the consul standing between them; and in the fourth, the same, only with no crowns around the fasces. - Smith, 1873.