A sceptre or scepter is a symbolic ornamental staff held by a ruling monarch, a prominent item of royal regalia. While some sceptres resemble a mace, their use is quite different.

Antiquity

A rod or staff has long represented authority. The sceptre of the King of Persia is mentioned in the biblical Book of Esther. 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 sceptres of great magnificence were used by kings and upper orders of the priesthood, and many representations of such sceptres occur on the walls of the painted tombs of Etruria. The British Museum, the Vatican and the Louvre possess Etruscan sceptres of gold, most elaborately and minutely ornamented.

The Roman sceptre probably derived from the Etruscan. Under the Republic an ivory sceptre (sceptrum eburneum) was a mark of consular rank. It was also used by victorious generals who received the title of imperator, and its use as a symbol of delegated authority to legates apparently was revived in the marshal's baton. Under the empire the sceptrum Augusti was specially used by the emperors, and was often of ivory tipped with a golden eagle. It is frequently shown on medallions of the later empire, which have on the obverse a half-length figure of the emperor, holding in one hand the sceptrum Augusti, and in the other the orb surmounted by a small figure of Victory.

Christian Era

With the advent of Christianity the sceptre was often tipped with a cross instead of with an eagle, but during the Middle Ages the finials on the top of the sceptre varied considerably.

In England from a very early period two sceptres have been concurrently used, and from the time of Richard I they have been distinguished as being tipped with a cross and a dove respectively. In France the royal sceptre was tipped with a fleur de lys, and the other, known as the main de justice, had an open hand of benediction on the top.

Sceptres with small shrines on the top are sometimes represented on royal seals, as on the great seal of Edward III, where the king, enthroned, bears such a sceptre, but it was an unusual form; and it is of interest to note that one of the sceptres of Scotland, preserved at Edinburgh, has such a shrine at the top, with little images of Our Lady, Saint Andrew and Saint James in it. This sceptre was, it is believed, made in France about 1536, for James V. Great seals usually represent the sovereign enthroned, holding a sceptre (often the second in dignity) in the right hand, and the orb and cross in the left. Harold appears thus in the Bayeux tapestry.