fecial

plural fecials

1. alternativeAlternative spelling of fetial.

   1 more example

   After an insult had been offered Rome, or a wrong inflicted on it, several of the twenty sacred heralds, members of the College of Fecials, proceeded to demand reparation. […] [I]f war were decided, a second deputation of fecials was nominated upon whom was placed the symbolic duty of discharging a javelin into the enemy camp. This part of the procedure had obvious difficultes, and, after resorting to the fiction of performing it at an enemy camp in Rome, the fecials finally adopted an appropriate ceremony at the temple of Bellona. The fecials also had religious functions at the conclusion of a peace. It was the oath taken by the chief fecial which sanctified a treaty entered into with, or by, the Roman people.

   1928, Geoffrey Butler, Simon Maccoby, “Intercourse: In Peace”, in The Development of International Law (Contributions to International Law and Diplomacy), London; New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd.; reprinted Clark, N.J.: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 2003 (2007 printing), →ISBN, page 74

1. alternativenot comparableAlternative spelling of fetial.

   The institution of a college of heralds and the fecial law, were proofs of a people considerably advanced in the cultivation of the law of nations as a science; and yet with what little attention they were accustomed to listen to the voice of justice and humanity, […]

   1832, James Kent, “Lecture I. Of the Foundation and History of the Law of Nations.”, in Commentaries on American Law, 2nd edition, volume I, New York, N.Y.: O. Halsted, →OCLC, part I (Of the Law of Nations), page 6