Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Ecdĭcus

（ἔκδικος). The name of an officer in many of the towns of Asia Minor under the Roman dominion. The word is translated in the ancient glossaries by cognitor, “agent” or “attorney.” The ecdicus was the agent of a city in its foreign business and its relations with the central government, and especially in prosecuting its claims against debtors. In Cicero's time the office seems to have been occasional and something like that of an ambassador. Under the Empire it was placed on a permanent footing (Plin. Ep. x. 111). The Defensor Civitatis (q.v.) of the later Empire was also called ἔκδικος in Greek.