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The fasces, as a bundle of rods with an axe, was a grouping of all the equipment needed to inflict corporal or capital punishment. In ancient Rome, the bundle was a material symbol of a Roman magistrate's full civil and military power, known as imperium.
This is an ancient Imperial Roman symbol of power carried by lictors in front of magistrates; a bundle of sticks featuring an axe, indicating the power over life and death. Before the Italian Fascists adopted the fasces, the symbol had been used by Italian political organizations of various political ideologies, called Fasci ("leagues") as a ...
Bronze statuette of a Roman lictor carrying a fasces, 20 BC to 20 AD. A lictor (possibly from Latin ligare, meaning 'to bind') was a Roman civil servant who was an attendant and bodyguard to a magistrate who held imperium. Roman records describe lictors as having existed since the Roman Kingdom, and may have originated with the Etruscans. [1]
In contemporary times, the former is commonly considered a symbol of fascism that had been based on a custom popularly attributed to ancient Rome. [1] However, no Roman text gives this description, and the Roman works of art that display salutational gestures bear little resemblance to the modern so-called "Roman" salute.
The fasces symbolized the military power, or imperium. [33] When inside the pomerium, the lictors removed the axes from the fasces to show that a citizen could not be executed without a trial. Upon entering the comitia centuriata, the lictors would lower the fasces to show that the powers of the consuls derive from the people.
Other traditional symbols of ancient Rome used by the Fascists included the she-wolf of Rome. [101] The fasces and the she-wolf symbolised the shared Roman heritage of all the regions that constituted the Italian nation. [101] In 1926, the fasces was adopted by the Fascist government of Italy as a symbol of the state. [102] In that year, the ...
In ancient Rome, imperium was a form of authority held by a citizen to control a military or governmental entity. It is distinct from auctoritas and potestas, different and generally inferior types of power in the Roman Republic and Empire. One's imperium could be over a specific military unit, or it could be over a province or territory.
The fasces and the she-wolf symbolized the shared Roman heritage of all the regions that constituted the Italian nation. [85] In 1926, the fasces was adopted by the fascist government of Italy as a symbol of the state. [86] In that year, the fascist government attempted to have the Italian national flag redesigned to incorporate the fasces on ...