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A fasces image, with the axe in the middle of the bundle of rods

A fasces (/ˈfæsiːz/ FASS-eez; Latin: [ˈfaskeːs]; a plurale tantum, from the Latin word fascis, meaning 'bundle'; Italian: fascio littorio) is a bound bundle of wooden rods, often, but not always, including an axe (occasionally two axes) with its blade emerging. The fasces is an Italian symbol that had its origin in the Etruscan civilization and was passed on to ancient Rome, where it symbolized a Roman king's power to punish his subjects,[1] and later, a magistrate's power and jurisdiction. The axe has its own separate and older origin. Initially associated with the labrys (Ancient Greek: λάβρυς, romanized: lábrys; Latin: bipennis),[a] the double-bitted axe originally from Crete, is one of the oldest symbols of Greek civilization.

The image of fasces has survived in the modern world as a representation of magisterial power, law, and governance. The fasces frequently occurs as a charge in heraldry: it is present on the reverse of the U.S. Mercury dime coin,; and it was the origin of the name of the National Fascist Party in Italy (from which the term fascism is derived).

During the first half of the twentieth century, both the fasces and the swastika (each symbol having its own unique ancient religious and mythological associations) became heavily identified with the fascist political movements of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler.[2][3][4][5][6] This is due to Mussolini's more active usage of the symbol and the campaigns of Hitler, Nazis, and anti-fascists alike to make various allusions and comparisons between the two dictators to associate Hitler with Mussolini and his symbolism.[2][3][4][5][6] During this period, the swastika became deeply stigmatized, but the fasces did not undergo a similar process outside of Italy.

The fasces remained in use in many societies after World War II because it had already been adopted and incorporated into the iconography of numerous governments outside of Italy prior to Mussolini. Such iconographical use persists in governmental and various other contexts. In contrast, the swastika remains in common usage only in Asia, where it originated as an ancient Hindu symbol, and in Navajo iconography, where its religious significance is entirely unrelated to, and predates, early 20th-century European fascism.[7]

Symbolism

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A print depicting Roman armour and accessories, including two versions of the fasces (seen in the lower right).

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. They were carried in a procession with a magistrate by lictors, who carried the fasces and, at times, used the birch rods as punishment to enforce obedience with magisterial commands.[8] In common language and literature, the fasces were regularly associated with certain offices: praetors were referred to in Greek as the hexapelekys (lit. 'six axes'), and the consuls were referred to as "the twelve fasces" as literary metonymy.[9] Beyond serving as insignia of office, it also symbolised the Roman Republic and its prestige.[10]

After the classical period, with the fall of the Roman state, thinkers were removed from the "psychological terror generated by the original Roman fasces" in the antique period. By the Renaissance, there emerged a conflation of the fasces with a Greek fable first recorded by Babrius in the second century AD, which depicted how individual sticks can be easily broken but how a bundle could not be.[11] This story is common across Eurasian culture and by the thirteenth century AD, was recorded in the Secret History of the Mongols.[12] While there is no historical connection between the original fasces and this fable,[13] by the sixteenth century AD, fasces were "inextricably linked" with interpretations of the fable as one expressing unity and harmony.[12]

In the ancient world

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Aquila (Legionary eagle), toga figure, and fasces on reverse side of coinage.
Earliest depiction of a fasces, c. 610 BC, discovered as a grave good in Vetulonia in 1897.

Origin

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The English word fasces comes from Latin, with singular fascis.[14] The word is usually used in its plural to refer to magisterial insignia, but is sometimes used to refer to bushels or bundles in an agricultural context. This word itself comes from the Indo-European root *bhasko-, referring to a bundle.[15]

The earliest archaeological remains of a fasces are those discovered in a necropolis near the Etruscan hamlet now called Vetulonia by the archaeologist Isidoro Falchi in 1897.[16] The discovery is now dated to the relatively narrow range of 630–625 BC, which coincides with the traditional dating of Rome's legendary fifth king, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus.[17] An Etruscan origin, furthermore, is supported by ancient literary evidence: the poet Silius Italicus, who flourished in the late 1st century AD, posited that Rome adopted many of its emblems of office – viz the fasces, the curule chair, and the toga praetexta – specifically from Vetulonia.[18] A story of Etruscan origin is further supported by Dionysius of Halicarnassus in his antiquarian work, Roman Antiquities.[19]

Rome

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Regal period

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Ancient Roman literary sources are unanimous in describing the ancient kings of Rome as being accompanied by twelve lictors carrying fasces. Dionysius, in Roman Antiquities, gave a complex story explaining this number: for him, the practice originated in Etruria, and each bundle symbolised one of the twelve Etruscan city-states; the twelve states together represented a joint military campaign, and were given to the Etruscan king of Rome, Tarquinius Priscus, on his accession to the throne.[19] While Livy concurred with Dionysius' story, he also relates a different story ascribing fasces to the first Roman king, Romulus, who selected twelve to correspond to the twelve birds which appeared in augury at the founding of Rome.[20]

Later stories gave different aetiologies: some described fasces as coming from Latium, others from Italy in general. Macrobius, writing in the 5th century AD, have the Romans taking fasces from the Etruscans as spoils of war rather than adopted by cultural diffusion. In general, it seems that by the sixth century BC, fasces had become a common symbol in central Italy and Etruria – if not also into southern Italy, as Livy implies[21] – for royal prestige and coercive power.[20] The ancient Roman literary record largely depicts the fasces of their time as carried largely symbolically by lictors who were present primarily to defend their charges from violence. However, the same stories depict fasces far more negatively in the context of tyrannies or regal displays.[22]

Plutarch, in his Life of Publicola, describes an incident in which Lucius Junius Brutus, the first Roman consul, has lictors scourge with rods and decapitate with axes – components of the fasces – his own sons, who were conspiring to restore the Tarquins to the throne.[23] After Brutus' alleged death in battle, Publicola then passed reforms subordinating magisterial use of fasces for coercion to the people: consuls would lower the fasces before the people during speeches, and there would be appeal to the people against a magistrate ordering capital or corporal punishment.[24]

Republican period

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Denarius minted by Marcus Junius Brutus depicting a personification of Libertas on left and Lucius Junius Brutus with lictors carrying bladed fasces on right.[25][26]
Rome, cloister of San Paolo, outside wall: marble panel depicting six fasces.

During the republic, the Romans used the number of fasces accompanying a magistrate to mark out rank and distinction. The two consuls each had 12 lictors, as did the traditional dictators.[27] The late republican dictators (of which Sulla was the first) were accompanied by 24 lictors and fasces.[28] However, the consuls alternated initiative by month. The consul without initiative would retain a negative on the other consul's actions, but would be preceded only by an accensus and be followed by lictors bearing reduced fasces.[27]

Praetors normally held six fasces and were so described on campaign in Greek sources. There were, however, some exceptions. After 197 BC, praetors sent to Hispania were dispatched with proconsular status and therefore received twelve fasces. Around the same time, in the lex Plaetoria, the number of fasces accompanying a praetor in court was reduced to merely two, possibly because a praetor in court "with six fasces might seem imperious".[29]

By the late second century BC, magistrates who had won victories abroad that were proclaimed imperator, a victory title, were decorated with laurel. This acclamation was a necessary prerequisite for celebrating a triumph, a prestigious award for which commanders might wait years.[30] Within the pomerium, Rome's sacred city boundary, the magistrates normally removed the axes from their fasces to symbolise the appealable nature of their civic powers.[31] However, an exception was made during a triumph, when the triumphing general's military auspices were extended into the city, so that he could make sacrifices at the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. The laurels decorating the triumphator's axed fasces were removed and decided in a ceremony, placing them in the lap of the cult statue of the Capitoline Jupiter.[32]

During the republic, only persons possessing imperium were granted full complements of fasces; the number granted to promagistrates for their analogous rank was not diminished.[31] Lieutenants exercising delegated imperium were, in the late republic, regularly granted two fasces.[33] When others were sometimes assigned lictors as bodyguards or otherwise to assist in official duties, they probably did not carry fasces.[34] Italian municipal officials during the republic were usually accompanied by local lictors, but these lictors did not carry fasces until imperial times.[35]

Popular resistance to magistrates during the late republic sometimes took the form of mobs smashing magisterial fasces. In 133 BC, Tiberius Gracchus incited a mob to take and break a praetor's fasces; two praetors, a certain Brutus and Servilius, were dispatched in 88 BC to order Lucius Cornelius Sulla, then consul, to desist from his march on Rome, and had their insignia of office defaced and destroyed; Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus's lictors were set upon in 59 BC when he, along with some plebeian tribunes, attempted to veto Julius Caesar's land reform bill during their joint consulship, leading to his lictors' fasces being lost entirely.[36] This last breaking of fasces was "a ritualistic act of symbolic violence (the People thus disposing of tokens of the imperium that was in their gift) that substituted for direct physical violence against the person of the consul".[37]

Imperial period

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Sestertius of Caracalla, 202–204. The reverse depicts the emperors Caracalla and Septimius on a platform (central characters); on the right is a lictor holding the new curved fascis.[38]

During the Roman Empire, the number of people who were entitled to fasces and lictors expanded. Fasces were first granted to Vestal Virgins by the Senate in 42 BC, when the six vestals were allowed one lictor each.[39] They were joined by fasces granted to the three major flamines (high priests). Single lictors also preceded members of the sodales Augustales, who were priests of the imperial cult.[40] At the death of the first emperor, Augustus, in AD 14, his widow, Livia, was voted a lictor by the Senate, though sources disagree as to whether she ever exercised the privilege.[41]

The division of the Roman provinces into imperial and senatorial provinces, with Augustus holding proconsular imperium over the imperial provinces and administering them through legates, also further expanded the number of fasces.[42] Augustus appointed legates with imperium pro praetore as governors, each of which was granted five lictors. When Italy was divided into fourteen regions in 7 BC, the curator of each region was granted two lictors while in office and on station. After the creation of the aerarium militare (military treasury) in AD 6, the three ex-praetors administering it were each granted two lictors as well.[43] Municipal magistrates' lictors also gained fasces during the imperial period.[35]

By the reign of the Severans at the start of the third century, fasces had been redesigned. Depicted on a sestertius struck c. AD 203, fasces no longer took the form of a bundle of sticks, but rather took the form of a long curved stick or two of such sticks bound together. The number of fasces granted to imperial governors titled proconsul stayed at twelve into the late fourth century AD; governors of the rank consularis received five fasces, but most governors (with the rank praeses) had no fasces at all.[44] This later form persisted through to the Eastern Roman Empire: the Byzantine antiquarian, John the Lydian, writing in the sixth century AD, described fasces as "long rods evenly bound together" with red straps and axes held aloft.[45] Into the mediaeval period, Byzantine emperors remained guarded by men – by the 14th century, the Varangian Guard – carrying staves and axes.[46]

Post-classical reception

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Raphael's Conversion of the Proconsul (1515), depicting fasces to the left of the magistrate.[47]

While the Latin word fasces did not fall out of use in the mediaeval period, its technical meaning was forgotten. By the end of the first millennium, it was glossed as "somehow connot[ing] 'supreme power' or 'official honours.'"[48] For example, c. 1439, Jean de Rovroy, when translating Frontinus' Stratagems, was deceived by a false cognate, and thought fasces referred to ribbons that Roman magistrates would wear on their heads; such misconceptions were apparently common, and dated back to the 11th century.[48] Visual representations of the bundle itself were rare – the 11th century AD Junius manuscript excepted – until the Renaissance.[49]

Renaissance

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Renaissance humanists, especially those who read more Latin, however, quickly became well-informed on fasces and their legal technicalities, including the customary removal of axes within the city, lowering before the people, and alternation by the consuls. By the first decade of the 16th century, references to fasces in a more Roman context started to appear.[50] At the same time, recognisable depictions started to reappear in Italy, such as Raphael's painting, Conversion of the Proconsul (c. 1515).[51]

By the mid-1500s, the fasces also began to symbolise other things which would have been "unimportant or even unknown to the Romans".[52] Pope Clement VIII's reassertion of Papal juridical authority after the sack of Rome in 1527 started iconographic developments that would associate fasces with personifications of Justice.[53]

Coat of arms of Cardinal Mazarin, the first to include fasces on arms in modern times.[54]

Syncretism of fasces with the Aesop fable of a bundle of sticks being harder to break than each stick alone associated fasces also with domestic concord, in addition to personifications of Concord as depicted in art.[55] This symbology also merged with that of justice, in that unbinding the rods and axes promoted reflection over just action.[56] In this context, Cardinal Mazarin placed fasces on his coat of arms, "the first individual in the modern era to do so".[54]

From here, depictions of fasces exploded. Art historian Antje Middeldorf-Kosegarten,[57] in Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte (Eng. “Real Lexicon of German Art History”):

charts for the post-Ripa period [after 1603] a proliferation of the fasces as symbol across almost every conceivable visual medium, from architectural sculpture to decorative arts, in paintings of every type, on monuments that range from honorific arches to tombs, as well as in medallic art and engravings...[58]

By the mid-seventeenth century, fasces had become "well established throughout Europe as a catch-all symbol for stable and competent governance". It also expanded to symbolise competent corporate governance.[59] Yet, due to a massive expansion in meaning, the symbol seemed to have died by the 1760s, muddled as little more than a reference to the past.[60]

Revolution

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A bronze cast of Jean-Antoine Houdon's statue of George Washington. Washington's left arm rests on a cloak over fasces with thirteen rods.[61]

As an emblem, fasces made their way to the colonies in British North America.[62] There, during the American Revolution, the fasces' symbology as referencing strength through unity was adopted as a symbol of the united colonial effort against British rule.[63]

Fasces similarly came to adopt a privileged symbology during the French Revolution. First referring to the 83 departments of 1789, as a symbol of unity, it came to be associated with fraternité and a united French people.[64] Topped with a Phrygian cap, fasces were seen as a reference to the "imagined spirit of the early Roman republic [and] its assertion of ideals of liberty and justice against tyranny".[65] In France, however, use of fasces as a symbol declined starting with the establishment of the Consulate in 1799 through to the proclamation of the Second Republic in 1848.[66]

Similar usage proliferated in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Haiti, in its revolution against France, coined with many depictions of fasces, as did Mexico during its first republic, Ecuador, Chile, and the Roman Republic of 1798.[67]

Modern usage

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An eagle perching on a fasces, a common symbol of fascist regimes.[68]

Numerous governments and other authorities have used the image of the fasces as a symbol of power since the end of the Roman Empire. It also has been used to hearken back to the Roman Republic, particularly by those who see themselves as modern-day successors to that republic or its ideals.

The Ecuadorian coat of arms incorporated the fasces in 1830, although it had already been in use in the coat of arms of Gran Colombia.

Italy

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The Italian word fascio (pl.: fasci), etymologically related to fasces, was used by various political organizations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the figurative meaning of "league" or "union".

Italian Fascism, which derives its name from the fasces, arguably used this symbolism the most in the twentieth century. The British Union of Fascists also used it in the 1930s. The fasces, as a widespread and long-established symbol in the West, however, has avoided the stigma associated with much of fascist symbolism (except in Italy, where exhibiting the fasces can lead to an indictment) and many authorities continue to display them, including the federal government of the United States.

  • War flag of the Italian Social Republic.
    War flag of the Italian Social Republic.
  • Flag of the National Fascist Party.
    Flag of the National Fascist Party.
  • Italian Fascist flag first seen used in the early 1920s, with this depiction being one variant of such flags that were the Italian tricolour flag with a fasces in the middle of it.
    Italian Fascist flag first seen used in the early 1920s, with this depiction being one variant of such flags that were the Italian tricolour flag with a fasces in the middle of it.
  • Eagle perched on fasces, as adorned on caps and helmets of Fascist Italy.
    Eagle perched on fasces, as adorned on caps and helmets of Fascist Italy.
  • Fuselage roundel used on aircraft of the Italian air force during the Fascist period.
    Fuselage roundel used on aircraft of the Italian air force during the Fascist period.
  • Roundel used on the wings of aircraft of the Italian air force during the Fascist period.
    Roundel used on the wings of aircraft of the Italian air force during the Fascist period.

France

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A review of the images included in Les Grands Palais de France : Fontainebleau[69][70] reveals that French architects used the Roman fasces (faisceaux romains) as a decorative device as early as the reign of Louis XIII (1610–1643) and continued to employ it through the periods of Napoleon I's Empire (1804–1815).

The fasces typically appeared in a context reminiscent of the Roman Republic and of the Roman Empire. The French Revolution used many references to the ancient Roman Republic in its imagery. During the First Republic, topped by the Phrygian cap, the fasces is a tribute to the Roman Republic and means that power belongs to the people. It also symbolizes the "unity and indivisibility of the Republic",[71] as stated in the French Constitution. In 1848 and after 1870, it appears on the seal of the French Republic, held by the figure of Liberty. There is the fasces in the arms of the French Republic with the "RF" for République française (see image below), surrounded by leaves of olive tree (as a symbol of peace) and oak (as a symbol of justice). While it is used widely by French officials, this symbol never was officially adopted by the government.[71]

President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing placed one on his presidential flag.[72] In 2015, a logo representing a stylized fasces was used for internet communication by the Presidency of the French Republic.[73] Since 1870, it has also appeared on the badges of deputies and senators known as barometers, which they place conspicuously on their vehicles.

United States

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Seal of the United States Senate with two fasces at bottom

Since the original founding of the United States in the 18th century, several offices and institutions in the United States have heavily incorporated representations of the fasces into much of their iconography.

Federal fasces iconography

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The reverse of the Mercury dime, with a fasces
Emancipation Memorial
Navy Medal of Honor, depicting the goddess Minerva with a fasces

State, local and other fasces iconography

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Ornate woodwork on railing in Minnesota Supreme Court Chamber
  • The main entrance hallways in the Wisconsin State Capitol have lamps that are decorated with stone fasces motifs; in the woodwork before the podium of the speaker of the assembly, several double-bladed fasces are carved, and in the woodwork before the podium of the senate president are several single-bladed fasces.
  • The grand seal of Harvard University inside Memorial Church is flanked by two inward-pointing fasces; the seal is located directly below the 368-foot (112 m) steeple and the Great Seal of the United States inside the Memorial Room; the walls of the room list the names of Harvard students, faculty, and alumni who gave their lives in service of the United States during World War I along with an empty tomb depicting Alma Mater holding a slain Harvard student.
  • The fasces appears on the state seal of Colorado, US, beneath the "All-seeing eye" (or Eye of Providence) and above the mountains and mines.
  • The hallmark of the Kerr & Co silver company was a fasces.
  • On the seal of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, a figure carries a fasces; the seal appears on the borough flag; fasces also can be seen in the stone columns at Grand Army Plaza and on a flagpole in Washington Square Park.
  • The symbol is used as part of the Knights of Columbus emblem (designed in 1883, replaced by a bayonet from 1926 to 1947).
  • Commercially, a small fasces appeared at the top of one of the insignia of the Hupmobile automobile.
  • A fasces appears on the statue of George Washington by Jean-Antoine Houdon that is now in the Virginia State Capitol; fasces are used as posts of the 1818 cast-iron fence surrounding the capitol building.
  • Columns in the form of fasces line the entrance to Buffalo City Hall.
  • In Newark Penn Station, the exit to Raymond Plaza West is bordered on both sides by 10-foot (3 m) vertical fasces (each with a double axe-head).
  • VAW-116 have a fasces on their unit insignia.
  • San Francisco's Coit Tower has two fasces-like insignia (without the axe) carved above its entrance, flanking a phoenix.
  • Two monuments erected in Chicago at the time of the Century of Progress Exposition are adorned with fasces; the monument to Christopher Columbus (1933) in Grant Park has them on the ends of its exedra; the Balbo Monument in Burnham Park, (1934) a gift from Benito Mussolini, has the vandalized remains of fasces on all four corners of its plinth.[76]

Examples of US fasces iconography

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Modern authorities and movements

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The following cases involve the adoption of the fasces as a symbol or icon, although no physical re-introduction has occurred.

See also

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Notes

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References

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Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Fasces

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from Grokipedia
The fasces was a symbol of authority in ancient Rome, comprising a bundle of wooden rods—typically elm or birch—bound together with leather straps around a central axe blade protruding from the bundle, carried by lictors who preceded magistrates possessing imperium.[1][2] These attendants enforced the official's commands, using the rods for flogging and the axe for decapitation, thereby embodying the state's power to administer corporal and capital punishment within legal bounds.[1][2] Originating from Etruscan predecessors, with archaeological evidence including a seventh-century BCE example from Vetulonia, the fasces was adapted by Rome's kings and retained through the Republic and Empire, where the number of lictors (and thus fasces) denoted rank—twelve for consuls, six for praetors, and up to twenty-four for dictators or emperors.[1] In the Republic, axes were often removed within the sacred city boundaries (pomerium) to signify restraint against Roman citizens, though restored for triumphs or military contexts.[2] Post-antiquity, the fasces influenced republican iconography in France and the United States, symbolizing unified authority and order, before its prominent appropriation in the twentieth century by Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party, which derived its name from the Latin fasces to evoke ancient Roman strength and discipline.[1]

Definition and Symbolism

Etymology and Components

The word fasces is the Latin plural of fascis, meaning "bundle," derived from Proto-Italic faksis and ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root bhask-, denoting a tying or binding together.[3] This etymology reflects the object's construction as a cohesive unit symbolizing unified strength, with the term entering English usage by 1598 to describe the Roman emblem of authority.[4] The fasces comprised a bundle of approximately 12 to 15 wooden rods, typically fashioned from birch (Betula) or elm (Ulmus) saplings, each about 1.5 meters (5 feet) long and rounded or rectangular in cross-section.[5] [6] These rods were tightly bound with leather thongs or cords, often colored red to evoke blood and magisterial power, forming a cylindrical or slightly tapered sheaf.[6] Embedded within or protruding from the bundle was usually a single-headed axe (securis), its blade extending outward to signify the bearer's right to corporal and capital punishment, though variations existed—such as the omission of the axe blade inside Rome's pomerium or the inclusion of a double-bladed axe in provincial contexts.[2] [5] The overall construction emphasized durability for carrying by lictors, weighing several kilograms when fully assembled.[6]

Core Meanings of Authority and Unity

The fasces consisted of a bundle of wooden rods, typically from elm or birch trees, bound together with leather thongs or red straps, often encircling a central axe blade protruding from the bundle.[6] This configuration symbolized the dual aspects of Roman magisterial power: the rods represented the potential for corporal punishment through flogging, while the axe denoted the authority to inflict capital punishment.[2] Lictors, attendants to high-ranking officials such as consuls and praetors, carried the fasces as emblems of imperium, the legal right to command and coerce obedience within the Roman state.[1] The bundled rods embodied the principle of strength through unity, illustrating that individual sticks could be easily broken but became formidable when fastened together, mirroring the cohesion required for societal order and military discipline.[7] This metaphor extended to the Roman emphasis on collective authority over personal autonomy, where the indivisibility of the bundle underscored the magistrate's role in enforcing unity among citizens and soldiers.[8] The axe's visibility affirmed the ultimate coercive power vested in the state, yet its orientation—heads outward during processions but sometimes lowered within the pomerium (sacred city boundary)—tempered this with the rule of law, signaling that execution required formal judicial process rather than arbitrary fiat.[2] In practice, lictors wielded the fasces not merely as ceremonial props but as instruments of immediate enforcement; the rods could be detached for beating offenders, reinforcing the tangible link between symbol and sovereign authority.[6] The number of lictors and fasces varied by office—twelve for consuls, six for praetors—quantifying the gradations of power and ensuring visual hierarchy in public displays.[1] Thus, the fasces encapsulated the Roman ideal of authority as both unifying and disciplinary, binding disparate elements under a single, enforceable will.[2]

Ancient Origins and Use

Pre-Roman Italic and Etruscan Roots

The fasces traces its origins to Etruscan civilization in central Italy, predating Roman adoption during the monarchy period. Archaeological evidence confirms Etruscan use of bundled rods with an axe as a symbol of magisterial authority, likely carried by attendants of rulers known as lucumones. This practice reflected the Etruscans' hierarchical society, where such emblems denoted the power to enforce law through flogging or execution.[9] The earliest physical attestation emerged from the Tombe del Littore (Tomb of the Lictor) at Vetulonia, an Etruscan settlement in southern Etruria (modern Tuscany). Excavated in 1898, the tomb yielded a miniature iron fasces dated to the mid-7th century BCE (circa 650–600 BCE), featuring a double-headed axe (bipennis) bound by rods—a variant emphasizing Etruscan preferences for symmetrical bronze axes influenced by Eastern Mediterranean motifs. This artifact, approximately 20 cm long, underscores the fasces' role in funerary contexts symbolizing status in the afterlife.[9][2] Etruscan dominance in Villanovan and Orientalizing periods (c. 900–600 BCE) facilitated cultural exchange with neighboring Italic groups, including proto-Latins in Latium. However, direct evidence of fasces among non-Etruscan Italic tribes, such as Umbrians or Osco-Umbrians, remains absent; their regalia favored spears or other implements without bundled rods. Literary traditions, preserved in Roman sources like Livy, attribute the symbol's transmission to Rome via Etruscan kings like Tarquinius Priscus (r. 616–579 BCE), who reportedly introduced 12 lictors bearing fasces.[2]

Regal Rome (c. 753–509 BCE)

During the Roman Kingdom, spanning approximately 753 to 509 BCE, the fasces functioned as the principal insignia of the king's imperium, embodying his absolute authority to enforce law through physical coercion and capital punishment. Ancient sources attribute the institution of lictors—attendants who bore the fasces—to Romulus, Rome's legendary founder and first king, who selected twelve such figures from the patrician class to precede him in public processions, clearing crowds and symbolizing regal power.[10] This arrangement, detailed in Livy's history, reflected the monarchy's centralized command structure, where the fasces underscored the unity of the state under the rex's unyielding rule.[9] The fasces consisted of a bundle of elm or birch rods (virgae), typically numbering around thirty, tightly bound with leather thongs or red straps around a wooden handle, with a projecting axe blade (securis) for execution. Lictors carried this implement on their left shoulder, using the rods to flog offenders or the axe to behead them, thereby making the fasces a practical tool for immediate justice as well as a visual deterrent.[1] Unlike the Republican era, where axes were withdrawn from fasces inside the pomerium to restrict urban executions, kings maintained the axes at all times, signifying their plenary imperium without spatial limitations.[11] This system of twelve lictors persisted as a hallmark of supreme authority, transitioning seamlessly to the consuls upon the monarchy's abolition in 509 BCE, and highlighting the fasces' enduring role in Roman governance from its regal origins. Archaeological evidence for the monarchy remains sparse, with descriptions relying on later literary traditions preserved by historians like Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, which portray the fasces as integral to the king's ceremonial and punitive apparatus.

Republican Rome (509–27 BCE)

Following the traditional establishment of the Roman Republic in 509 BCE after the overthrow of King Tarquinius Superbus, the fasces retained their role as symbols of imperium, the authority to command and punish, carried by lictors who attended magistrates. These bundles of elm or birch rods, often 1.5 meters long and bound with red straps, typically included a projecting axe blade (securis) when outside the sacred city boundary (pomerium), enabling capital punishment, but the axe was removed within Rome to limit authority to corporal flogging. [1] The number of lictors and fasces denoted magisterial rank: consuls, the chief annual executives, each had twelve; praetors six; curule aediles two; and the dictator, appointed in crises, twenty-four.[12] This hierarchical display underscored the Republic's structured power distribution among elected officials, contrasting with monarchical absolutism. Lictors, drawn from freedmen or the plebeian class, walked ahead of magistrates in processions, clearing paths and enforcing order, with the fasces serving both as practical tools for immediate chastisement and emblems of the bearer's jurisdiction.[12] In a key republican adaptation, lictors lowered the fasces when addressing assemblies or the people, symbolizing magistrates' subjection to popular sovereignty, as exemplified in Livy's account of consul Lucius Junius Brutus in 509 BCE yielding precedence to his colleague and humbling the symbols before the populace.[12] This gesture marked a shift from regal to republican governance, where authority derived from election rather than heredity, though imperium remained coercive.[2] The fasces thus embodied the Republic's balance of executive power and restraint, with their use extending to provincial proconsuls and propraetors who retained axes abroad to execute sentences without urban checks. While popular interpretations attribute bundled strength to the fasces as a metaphor for unity, ancient evidence primarily links them to punitive instruments—rods for beating, axe for beheading—clustered for the magistrate's convenience rather than abstract symbolism.[1] Archaeological and literary sources, including coins from the late Republic like the denarius of A. Postumius in 81 BCE depicting fasces alongside military eagles, confirm their prominence in visual propaganda of authority and martial prowess.[2] By the late Republic (c. 133–27 BCE), ambitious figures like Pompey and Caesar amassed lictors beyond norms during triumphs, foreshadowing the erosion of these conventions under personal rule, yet the fasces persisted as core to republican magistracy until Augustus' principate.[12]

Imperial Rome (27 BCE–476 CE)

In the Roman Empire, established by Augustus in 27 BCE, the fasces retained their role as emblems of imperium, the authority to command obedience, administer corporal punishment via rods, and execute capital sentences with the embedded axe, though the latter was restricted for Roman citizens following republican precedents. Lictors, typically retired soldiers or freedmen, carried the fasces in processions before magistrates including emperors, consuls, praetors, and provincial governors, enforcing order and precedence in public settings.[2][12] Augustus, as princeps, initially downplayed overt monarchical symbols, including sparse depictions of fasces on imperial coinage from his reign through Nerva (27 BCE–98 CE), possibly to evoke republican traditions amid sensitivity to kingship associations. By 19 BCE, however, the Senate granted Augustus perpetual rights to 12 lictors with fasces exercisable empire-wide, surpassing consular limits confined to Rome or provinces. Emperors typically commanded 12 lictors, a number symbolizing equality with consuls yet extended universally, increasing to 24 after Domitian (81–96 CE) to reflect augmented autocracy.[2] Fasces appearances on coins revived under Trajan and Hadrian in the 2nd century CE, often portraying lictors flanking the emperor in scenes of benefaction or military review, underscoring delegated yet hierarchical power structures. In Rome by 76 CE under Vespasian, approximately 370 lictors served the imperial apparatus, extending the fasces' punitive reach across civic and familial spheres, including protection for the imperial household and Vestal Virgins. Provincial legates and proconsuls similarly employed lictors with fasces to project Roman sovereignty locally.[2][12] During the 3rd century CE and the Dominate's consolidation of absolute rule, fasces designs shifted to elongated, curved rods with stylized, often non-utilitarian axe heads, persisting as icons of coercion amid military anarchy and administrative centralization. Laurels adorned imperial fasces on triumphant occasions, evoking victories, while veiling or axe removal signified mourning or supplication. By the Western Empire's fall in 476 CE, the fasces symbolized enduring Roman magistracy, though diluted by Christian influences and barbarian integrations that repurposed or supplanted classical insignia.[2][1]

Post-Antique Revivals

Medieval and Renaissance Interpretations

During the medieval period, the Latin term fasces continued to denote supreme power or official honors, though visual representations were scarce. The word retained its association with magisterial authority in ecclesiastical and legal texts, while "lictor" endured in usage partly due to biblical references implying punitive roles. An isolated depiction appears in early 11th-century Anglo-Saxon religious art, reflecting Carolingian influences but not indicating widespread adoption.[2] In the Renaissance, humanists revived accurate understandings of the fasces through direct engagement with classical Latin sources, recognizing its role as a symbol of imperium and judicial power. Artistic representations proliferated from the late 15th century, often allegorizing authority and justice; for instance, Raphael incorporated fasces into Vatican tapestry cartoons commissioned around 1515–1516 by Pope Leo X, portraying Roman lictors in historical scenes. Giorgio Vasari's 1544 painting "Farnese Justice," created for a cardinal under Pope Paul III, featured the fasces as an emblem of equitable rule, integrating it into emblematic traditions.[2] Papal iconography further embedded the symbol, with tombs of four popes beginning with Paul III (r. 1534–1549) displaying fasces to evoke divine and temporal justice. Cesare Ripa's Iconologia (first edition 1593, expanded as Nova Iconologia in 1603) codified the fasces in emblem books, associating it with both Justice—bearing rods for correction and an axe for severity—and Concord, drawing on Aesop's fable of bundled sticks for strength through unity. This synthesis preserved the fasces' coercive essence while adapting it to Renaissance ideals of ordered governance and moral harmony.[2]

Enlightenment and Revolutionary Contexts

During the Enlightenment, European intellectuals and artists, inspired by classical antiquity and neoclassical aesthetics, revived the fasces as a symbol of balanced authority, unity, and justice, drawing from Roman republican ideals to critique absolutism and advocate for structured governance. Influential emblem books, such as Cesare Ripa's Iconologia (first published in 1593 but widely disseminated and translated into the 18th century), depicted the fasces as an attribute of Justice and Concord, representing the binding together of disparate elements into a cohesive whole stronger than its parts—a metaphor aligned with Enlightenment emphases on social contract theory and rational order.[2] This symbolic reinterpretation softened the fasces' punitive Roman connotations, emphasizing instead its potential for legitimate power derived from collective cohesion, as explored in philosophical works admiring Roman institutions for their separation of powers and civic virtue.[1] In artistic practice, the fasces appeared in neoclassical sculptures and allegories, evoking magisterial restraint within a framework of law. For instance, in 1689, French sculptor Antoine Coysevox incorporated an axeless fasces into his equestrian statue of Louis XIV in Paris, symbolizing the monarch's dominion through unity and moderation rather than unbridled force—a nod to the era's transitioning views on sovereignty amid growing republican sentiments.[2] Such uses reflected broader Enlightenment engagements with Roman symbolism, as thinkers like Montesquieu in The Spirit of the Laws (1748) praised the Roman Republic's mechanisms of authority, implicitly endorsing symbols like the fasces for their embodiment of imperium checked by constitutional limits.[2] As revolutionary fervor mounted in the late 18th century, the fasces transitioned from monarchical or philosophical iconography to emblems of popular sovereignty and fraternal strength, prefiguring its explicit adoption in republican movements. Prior to 1789, it featured in European prints and designs evoking unity against division, aligning with radical interpretations of Roman liberty as a bulwark against tyranny—though interpretations varied, with some viewing it as a tool for disciplined reform rather than outright upheaval. This period's symbolic evolution underscored the fasces' versatility, from Enlightenment rationalism's ordered authority to proto-revolutionary calls for collective empowerment, setting the conceptual groundwork for later political appropriations.[2][1]

Pre-Fascist Modern Appropriations

Fasces in French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Symbolism

The fasces, termed "faisceau de licteur" in French, emerged as a prominent symbol during the French Revolution, adopted by revolutionaries to evoke the authority and unity of the Roman Republic while repudiating monarchical absolutism. In 1790, the National Constituent Assembly designated the "antique fasces" as an official emblem of the nascent French state, reinterpreting the Roman bundle of rods—traditionally signifying magisterial power—as a representation of collective strength among citizens united in defense of liberty.[13] This choice reflected the revolutionaries' deliberate invocation of classical antiquity to legitimize their governance, with the fasces embodying fraternité through its visual metaphor of bundled rods unbreakable when united.[2] By 1792, the fasces appeared in the semi-official seal of the revolutionary government, depicting a seated female figure of Liberty grasping the bundle, underscoring its role in state iconography as a marker of justice and republican sovereignty.[2] The symbol proliferated in revolutionary art and artifacts, including Sèvres porcelain teapots emblazoned with the Fasces of the Lictor in 1795, and paintings such as Nanine Vallain's Liberté (1794), where the allegorical figure wields the fasces alongside other emblems of emancipation.[14] These usages validated the exercise of coercive state power, including corporal punishment, as essential to overthrowing the ancien régime and establishing order amid chaos.[15] Under the Napoleonic regime, the fasces retained limited presence in transitional symbols, notably the French Consulate seal of 1799, which incorporated the bundle to signal continuity with revolutionary classical motifs during Bonaparte's consolidation of authority. However, Napoleon Bonaparte largely eschewed the fasces in favor of imperial symbols like the eagle and bee, which better aligned with his emulation of Roman emperors rather than the republican connotations of the original bundle; its prominence waned following the Consulate's establishment, as Bonaparte sought to distance his rule from pure revolutionary republicanism.[2] This shift marked a pivot toward more autocratic iconography, though echoes of the fasces persisted in broader French republican imagery into later periods.[16]

Adoption in United States Iconography

The adoption of the fasces in United States iconography reflects the Founding Fathers' and later architects' admiration for the Roman Republic as a model of republican governance, emphasizing unity and magisterial authority without monarchical overtones.[17] The symbol, representing a bundle of rods signifying collective strength and often an axe for executive power, appeared in American civic art during the neoclassical revival of the late 18th and 19th centuries, predating its association with Italian Fascism by over a century.[18] In the U.S. Capitol, two oversized bronze fasces, each containing 13 rods to symbolize the original states, flank the Speaker's rostrum in the House of Representatives chamber, underscoring legislative authority and national unity.[19] These were installed as part of the chamber's 19th-century design, drawing directly from Roman precedents where fasces denoted consular power but adapted to exclude axes in some civic contexts to signify restrained authority.[20] The Senate seal, formalized in 1885, incorporates crossed fasces beneath a liberty cap, pairing the emblem of authority with symbols of peace (olive branch) and strength (oak branch) to evoke balanced republican institutions.[21] Architectural use extended to monuments like the Lincoln Memorial, completed in 1922, where fasces without axes adorn the arms of Abraham Lincoln's statue and the flanking pylons, symbolizing the preservation of Union through collective resolve amid the Civil War's division.[22] Designer Henry Bacon incorporated the motif to convey enduring national cohesion, aligning with classical ideals of governance that influenced American federalism.[23] On currency, the reverse of the Mercury dime, minted from 1916 to 1945 and designed by Adolph A. Weinman, features a fasces entwined with an olive branch, denoting authority bolstered by unity and tempered by peace—elements rooted in Roman symbolism and unrelated to contemporaneous European political movements.[24] This design choice, approved before Benito Mussolini's 1922 adoption of the fasces for his regime, exemplifies the symbol's entrenched role in pre-World War II American emblematic tradition.[25]

Fascist Era Adoption and Legacy

Mussolini's Italy and the Naming of Fascism

Benito Mussolini established the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento on March 23, 1919, in Milan, selecting the fasces as the emblem to evoke ancient Roman symbols of authority and unity, with the movement's name deriving from the Italian fascio, meaning "bundle," directly referencing the Roman fasces as a metaphor for collective strength under centralized power.[26][27] The choice reflected Mussolini's emphasis on reviving Roman imperial traditions to foster Italian nationalism and discipline, positioning the fasces as a visual representation of bundled rods symbolizing indivisible national cohesion bound by an axe of decisive leadership.[28] This paramilitary group transitioned into the National Fascist Party (Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF) during the Third Fascist Congress from November 7 to 10, 1921, in Rome, formalizing the fasces as the party's core insignia and embedding it in organizational structure and propaganda to signify hierarchical order and martial resolve. Following the March on Rome in October 1922 and Mussolini's appointment as prime minister, the fasces permeated state iconography, appearing on flags, official seals, architectural motifs in public buildings, and uniforms of regime officials, including ceremonial lictors who carried replicas to denote magisterial imperium akin to Roman consuls.[29][28] Under Mussolini's dictatorship, consolidated by 1925 through laws suppressing opposition, the fasces served as a propaganda tool to propagate ideals of totalitarian unity, with depictions in posters, rallies, and media portraying it as the embodiment of fascist strength against division, often juxtaposed with Roman eagles or imperial motifs to claim continuity with antiquity's grandeur.[30] The symbol's adoption underscored a deliberate ideological link to Rome's republican and imperial past, rejecting liberal individualism in favor of corporatist state control, though critics noted its distortion from original Roman egalitarian connotations within the magistrate's service to the res publica.[28] By the 1930s, the fasces adorned military insignia, aircraft roundels, and even proposed imperial regalia during the 1936 alliance with Nazi Germany, reinforcing Mussolini's vision of a new Roman Empire through Ethiopian conquest and Mediterranean expansion.[31]

Extensions to Other 20th-Century Regimes

The fasces symbol persisted in the Italian Social Republic (RSI), a short-lived fascist puppet regime formed in northern Italy after the Kingdom of Italy's armistice with the Allies on September 8, 1943. Proclaimed on September 23, 1943, by Benito Mussolini with Nazi German backing, the RSI retained the fasces in its state emblems, military insignia, and flags to evoke continuity with the prior fascist order and ancient Roman magisterial authority. The regime's coat of arms featured the Roman eagle grasping a fasces, symbolizing bundled strength under dictatorial rule, while military units displayed fasces-bound standards during operations against partisans and Allied advances. This adoption extended the fasces' role amid World War II's final phases, with the symbol appearing on official documents, currency proposals, and propaganda until the regime's collapse on April 25, 1945, amid uprisings and German retreat. The RSI's use reinforced the fasces as an emblem of fascist resilience, though its enforcement was constrained by German oversight and internal resistance, limiting causal impact on broader symbol dissemination. Beyond Italy, no other 20th-century regimes centrally incorporated the fasces into state symbolism, despite fascist ideology's spread; regimes like Francisco Franco's Spain (1939–1975) favored the yoke and arrows from Catholic Monarchs' heritage, and Portugal's Estado Novo under António de Oliveira Salazar (1933–1974) emphasized nationalistic motifs without Roman fasces revival. This pattern underscores the fasces' specific tether to Mussolini's Roman imperial narrative, which other authoritarian states adapted selectively to local traditions rather than emulating directly.[32] Peripheral fascist movements, such as Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (1932–1940), referenced the fasces in early iconography to signal alignment with Italian precedents, but lacked governmental control to institutionalize it.[33]

Contemporary Interpretations and Debates

Post-WWII Governmental and Cultural Uses

In the United States, the fasces symbol persisted in governmental iconography after 1945, reflecting its pre-existing adoption as an emblem of authority, unity, and magisterial power derived from classical antiquity rather than any endorsement of mid-20th-century totalitarian ideologies.[17] Prominent examples include its depiction in the Seal of the United States Senate, where paired fasces flank the central shield, symbolizing the legislative body's cohesive strength and judicial oversight.[17] Similarly, the Mace of the House of Representatives, crafted in 1841 and still in ceremonial use as of 2023, features fasces at its base and apex, representing the chamber's collective authority to maintain order and enforce rules during sessions.[19] Federal architecture in Washington, D.C., constructed largely before World War II but maintained and interpreted post-war, incorporates fasces extensively, such as in the friezes and sculptures of the U.S. Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, where they underscore themes of national unity and the rule of law without alteration due to historical associations elsewhere.[22][17] These elements, numbering over 100 instances in the Lincoln Memorial alone, were intentionally selected by architect Henry Bacon in 1914-1922 to evoke the bundled strength of the citizenry in support of democratic governance.[22] In France, the fasces retained a place in republican symbolism post-1945, reinterpreted since the Revolution as denoting the indivisible union of citizens in defense of liberty rather than hierarchical coercion.[13] An unofficial but enduring coat of arms of the French Republic, in use through the Fifth Republic established in 1958, depicts fasces alongside other classical motifs to signify justice and national solidarity.[13] This continuity stems from the symbol's integration into revolutionary iconography, predating 20th-century political appropriations by over a century.[13] Culturally, post-WWII uses have appeared in neoclassical art and public monuments emphasizing republican virtues, though sparingly due to selective awareness of the symbol's varied historical loadings; for instance, architectural restorations in Europe and the U.S. have preserved fasces in contexts like the Élysée Palace, where they adorn interiors as emblems of enduring state authority.[13] In military insignia, such as certain provost units, the fasces has symbolized lawful compulsion and order maintenance into the late 20th century, drawing on its ancient connotation of bundled enforcement power.[31] These applications prioritize the symbol's original Roman semantics of collective might over subsequent ideological overlays.[17]

Controversies Over Symbolism in Liberal Democracies

In the United States, the fasces has elicited controversies in public and governmental contexts due to its 20th-century appropriation by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime, despite its pre-existing role in American iconography symbolizing unity and authority derived from Roman republican traditions. Adopted in U.S. designs as early as the Founding era, the symbol appeared on federal architecture, seals, and currency well before fascism's rise, representing the bundled strength of states under constitutional governance.[17] Post-World War II, heightened awareness of its fascist associations prompted isolated challenges, such as a 1940 federal court order by Judge Léon Yankwich to remove a fasces panel from a Los Angeles courtroom, deeming it evocative of totalitarian power.[11] The reverse of the Mercury dime, minted from 1916 to 1945 and featuring a fasces alongside an olive branch to denote military strength and peace, faced retrospective scrutiny for its imagery, contributing to perceptions that influenced its replacement with the Roosevelt dime in 1946, which substituted a liberty torch flanked by olive and oak branches.[11][34] Similar debates arose in the 1930s and 1940s over proposed fasces in public buildings, like a 1939 statue for North Carolina's Justice Building, where critics argued it projected authoritarian overtones amid rising global fascism.[11] Nonetheless, enduring features such as the crossed fasces in the U.S. Senate seal—formalized in the late 19th century to signify freedom and authority—and the 13-rod bronze fasces installed in 1857 flanking the House of Representatives podium have persisted without removal, underscoring a distinction between original republican intent and later ideological hijacking.[21][35] Contemporary tensions stem from the symbol's adoption by far-right extremists, including white supremacist groups like Patriot Front and Vanguard America since the late 2000s, who deploy it to evoke authoritarian unity, prompting the Anti-Defamation League to classify it as a hate symbol in extremist contexts.[31] This misuse has spurred niche calls, often in online forums, for phasing out fasces from congressional settings, though such proposals lack institutional traction and are countered by arguments emphasizing the symbol's ahistorical detachment from Mussolini's innovations, given its independent American lineage predating 1922.[31][17] In other liberal democracies like France, where fasces feature in republican emblems such as unofficial coats of arms denoting justice, controversies remain subdued, reflecting entrenched associations with revolutionary rather than fascist legacies.[17] Overall, these debates highlight causal tensions between historical continuity and symbolic repurposing, with retention in core institutions prioritizing empirical origins over post-hoc stigma.

Extremist Misappropriations and Hate Group Associations

In the decades following World War II, the fasces has been appropriated by neo-fascist and white supremacist organizations as a visual shorthand for authoritarian unity and strength, invoking its legacy from Mussolini's regime while evading the immediate stigma of more overt symbols like the swastika. This usage often frames the bundle as emblematic of racial or national solidarity under hierarchical leadership, distinct from its ancient Roman or republican connotations of magisterial authority.[31][23] In the United States, groups such as the National Socialist Movement—a neo-Nazi organization active since 1974—have incorporated the fasces into flags, patches, and propaganda materials to signify white pride, superiority, and disciplined governance, blending it with other fascist and Nazi iconography.[31] Similarly, the Fascist National Socialist Party, a smaller white supremacist entity, has employed the symbol in online and public displays to align with historical fascism's emphasis on state power over individualism.[31] These appropriations appear in contexts like rallies and merchandise, where the fasces serves as a less scrutinized alternative to banned emblems, allowing groups to signal ideology to sympathizers without universal condemnation.[15][36] European neo-fascist circles, particularly in Italy, have referenced the fasces in fringe publications, tattoos, and occasional demonstrations by groups like CasaPound Italia, which draws from interwar fascist aesthetics to promote ethno-nationalism and anti-immigration stances.[37] Post-war entities tracing roots to the Italian Social Movement (MSI), founded in 1946 as a haven for ex-fascists, have invoked the symbol in homage to Mussolini's original adoption, though overt use declined amid legal restrictions on fascist glorification enacted in 1952 and reinforced thereafter.[38][39] Such associations persist in underground networks, where the fasces symbolizes resistance to liberal democracy, but mainstream successors like Brothers of Italy have minimized it to avoid alienating voters, favoring subtler nods to national heritage.[38] The appeal to these groups stems partly from the fasces' layered history, enabling plausible deniability—its presence in U.S. civic symbols like the Senate seal allows claims of mere classical revival—while conveying exclusivity to those versed in fascist lore.[23] Extremist adoption has been documented at gatherings blending alt-right and neo-Nazi elements, such as those in the 2010s, where Roman motifs including fasces underscored narratives of civilizational decline and renewal through force.[15][40] Monitoring organizations attribute this to the symbol's relative obscurity post-1945, which facilitates infiltration of broader nationalist discourses without triggering widespread backlash.[31][2]

References

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  2. The Fasces: Ancient Rome's Most Dangerous Political Symbol
  3. Fasces - Etymology, Origin & Meaning
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  5. Fasces | Definition, History, & Facts - Britannica
  6. Fasces - World History Encyclopedia
  7. Fasces - Buffalo Architecture and History
  8. The Symbols of Roman History - Walks Inside Rome
  9. Origins of the Fasces - Oxford Academic - Oxford University Press
  10. Lictor - IMPERIUM ROMANUM
  11. Authoritarianism's Emblem | James Romm
  12. Lictor - Livius.org
  13. The lictor's fasces - Élysée
  14. French Revolutionary Teapot | Smithsonian Institution
  15. Fasces, Fascism, and How the Alt-Right Continues to Appropriate ...
  16. Symbols - Napoleon - NGV
  17. When Fasces Aren't Fascist | History of America's Federal Buildings
  18. What Does That Mean? - U.S. Capitol Historical Society
  19. House Rostrum | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
  20. House Chamber | Architect of the Capitol
  21. About Traditions & Symbols | Senate Seal
  22. Secret Symbol of the Lincoln Memorial (U.S. National Park Service)
  23. A new book explores the fasces, a symbol of power — and of unity
  24. https://www.govmint.com/learn/post/a-fascist-u-s-dime
  25. https://www.usmint.gov/learn/coins-and-medals/circulating-coins/dime
  26. What to Know About the Origins of Fascism's Brutal Ideology
  27. Mussolini founds precursor to the Fascist party | March 23, 1919
  28. The radical reinterpretation of the fasces in Mussolini's Italy | OUPblog
  29. How Benito Mussolini led Italy to fascism - National Geographic
  30. How Mussolini Turned Italy Into a Fascist State - History.com
  31. Fasces - ADL
  32. Fascism | Definition, Meaning, Characteristics, Examples, & History
  33. British Union of Fascists (BUF) | Ideology, Oswald Mosley, Policies ...
  34. Fasces on the dime made sense at time - Numismatic News
  35. Front and Center | US House of Representatives
  36. The Fasces. A History of Ancient Rome's Most Dangerous Political ...
  37. Italian Neofascism and the Years of Lead: A Closer Look at the ...
  38. How a right-wing party of neo-fascist roots became poised to lead Italy
  39. [PDF] Racially or Ethnically Motivated Groups: Symbols Guide - CT.gov
  40. Signs of the Times: Ancient Symbols Reused by Hate Groups
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