Editing Lictor (section)

==Eligibility==
[[File:Bust of a lictor. (51610297130).jpg|right|thumb|200px|Bust of a 2nd century lictor most likely wearing a ''[[paenula]]'', a type of cloak<ref>{{Cite book |last=Koortbojian |first=Michael |url={{google books |id=WJu4DwAAQBAJ |plainurl=y}} |title=Crossing the Pomerium: The Boundaries of Political, Religious, and Military Institutions from Caesar to Constantine |date=2020-01-21 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-19749-4 |page=88 }}</ref>]]

Lictors were drawn from the plebeians and, in elite literature, were generally depicted as being drawn from low status.{{sfn|Brennan|2023|p=2. "The broad consensus amount our literary authors – republican and imperial, Greek and Roman, prose and poetry – is that lictors were low-born and prone to thuggish behaviour"; see also Plutarch, ''Comparatio Lysandri et Sullae'', 4.4}} They were, however, all citizens.{{sfn|Brennan|2023|pp=10, 222 n. 3, citing Dio, 48.43.3, mentioning an edict requiring all lictors to be citizens in 38&nbsp;BC}} 

[[Centurion]]s from the [[Roman legion|legions]] were also automatically eligible to become lictors on retirement from the army. A lictor had to be a strongly built man, capable of physical work. Lictors were exempted from military service, received a fixed salary (of 600 ''[[Sestertius|sestertii]]'', in the beginning of the Empire), and were organized in a corporation. Usually, they were personally chosen by the magistrate they were supposed to serve, but it is also possible that they were drawn by lots.{{cn |date=February 2025}}