A sceptre or scepter is a symbolic ornamental staff held by a ruling monarch, a prominent item of kingly regalia. It resembles a mace. Antiquity A rod or staff has long represented authority. Among the early Greeks the sceptre was a long staff, such as Agamemnon wielded (Iliad, i) or was used by respected elders (Iliad, xviii. 46; Herodotus 1. 196), and came to be used by judges, military leaders, priests and others in authority. It is represented on painted vases as a long staff tipped with a metal ornament. When the sceptre is borne by Zeus or Hades, it is headed by a bird. It was this symbol of Zeus, the father of Olympus, that gave their inviolable status to the kerykes, the heralds, who were thus protected by the precursor of modern diplomatic immunity. When, in the Iliad Agamemnon sends Odysseus to the leaders of the Achaeans, he lends him his sceptre. Among the Etruscans scept

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