Faces are bundles of birchen rods, carried by the lictors before the highest class of Roman magistrates, with an axe bound up in the middle of them, as for the punishment of wicked does. The rods shew the more lenient infliction for faults capable of correction; the axe (securis) to indicate that the perpetrators of heinous and unatonable crimes were to be cut off from society [Literally, heads cut off].
These faces and secures, on coins, denote the supreme authority of the consuls and other principal magistrates, as having the right and power of life and death. The figure of a curule chair (symbolical of the consular office), placed between two faces (sometimes with, sometimes without, the axes) is a frequent type on coins of Roman families (See FUFIA and LIVINEIA). The faces, and a caduceus, placed crosswise, with an axe below and a globe above them, and on one side two right hands joined, appear on silver coins of Aemilius Buca and Julius Caesar. The faces with the axe appear on coins of the Licinia (Morell, TAB 3) and Norbana families.