[70] Why do they call such persons as stand convicted of theft or of any other servile offences furciferi?[162]
Is this also evidence of the carefulness of the men of old? For anyone who had found guilty of some knavery a slave reared in his own household used to command him to take up the forked stick, which they put under their carts, and to proceed through the community or the neighbourhood, observed of all observers, that they might distrust him and be on their guard against him in the future. This stick we call a prop, and the Romans furca (“fork”): wherefore also he who has borne it about is called furcifer (“fork-bearer”).