each consul was accompanied in public by twelve "lictors", who displayed the magnificence of the office and served as his bodyguards. each lictor held a "fasces", a bundle of rods that contained an axe. the rods symbolized the power of scourging, and the axe the power of capital punishment. when inside the city, the lictors removed the axes from the fasces to show that a citizen could not be executed without a trial. upon entering the democratic assembly, the lictors would lower the fasces to show that the powers of the consuls derive from the senate and people of rome (senatus populusque romanus).