Holy baloney, another Patreon stretch goal video so soon! As I promised, let’s talk
about the fasces, a symbol which defined Italian Fascism’s anti-democratic regime, the power
of the people in Rome, and whatever it represents as it sits today in the US Congress. Let’s
take a look. Hi, I’m Tristan Johnson, and this is Step
Back History. Be sure to click the subscribe button as well as the bell notification to
never miss a new Step Back video or live stream. You might have seen this symbol before, whether
it be behind the speaker of the house in Congress, or emblazoned on a… shield? Wielded by the
Nazis in Charlottesville. Wait really? Shields? Who the fuck do these people think they’re
protecting themselves from? The Seljuks? Ok, sad attempt at parodying a measured response
aside, the fasces is a symbol going all the way back to… well, as far back as we can
measure. To all those red pill high-T alphas, the Etruscans, an ancient society in modern
day Tuscany, used the fasces as a symbol to represent the feminine gods in prehistoric
times. The word fasces comes from Latin and is a
symbol showing a bundle of sticks. Frequently people placed an axe inside with the blade
sticking out. Sometimes with a double-bladed axe, the Romans called a bipennis. Bi...bipen…
The fasces is such a widespread symbol because of its adoption by the Romans. From the early
kingdoms to the late empire, Romans used this symbol as a metaphor for the strength of Rome.
One stick is fragile, while a bundle of sticks is strong. Strength through unity and whatnot.
Another way Romans saw the fasces was a symbol of the power of the state. The sticks and
axe being the state’s control of corporal and capital punishment.
By the time of the Roman republic, the fasces already had tons of ceremony and tradition.
Various girths of fasces belonged to different ranks of Roman leaders. A consul would have
twelve, a proconsul eleven, a praetor six, a propraetor five, and the curule aediles
two. Sometimes in times of trouble, the Romans
would put their… “democracy” on hold and temporarily empower one person with unlimited
power. They called this person the dictator, and when there was one of these dudes around,
he got to wield the biggest phalli- I mean a symbol of state authority made of a mighty
twenty-four sticks. They had to carry this symbol with them, but
when they entered into the sacred inner city of Rome, called the pomerium, they had to
remove DAT AXE. To represent that the power over life and death was in the hands of the
people. By the way, when the Romans or people try to wax lyrically about the power of the
people in Roman society, just remember these people might have been the biggest hypocrites
in human history. Well, at least tied with the slave owners rebelling for freedom. Anyway…
Once the republic turned into the empire, the Roman Emperor carried around a 12 stick
fasces with him. At least until the reign of Domitian the insecure, who felt his fasces
was insufficiently big and demanded he get a 24 stick one.
Sometimes, on special occasions, like after a big victory, Roman leaders could put a laurel
wreath on it to symbolise victory. They’d use it for events like military parades.
As with many symbols like the eagle, the colour purple, and using Latin to sound smart, leftovers
from the Roman times has been appropriated by various cultures to either place themselves
as the successor to that empire or as fanboys of the values of the Roman Republic. For example,
it was probably used for one purpose then the other as both Louis the sixteenth and
Napoleon adopted it. It’s all over Latin America, and the United States’s government
buildings and monuments have tonnes of them. Most notably, some Italian political groups
adopted the Roman symbol. Some syndicalist groups like the Unione Sindicale Italiana
used the fasces as a sort of unifying symbol. Try to borrow a bit of that Roman republic
flavour. For a long time, the Italian word fascio could reference coops or unions.
However, the symbol is more remembered as the official mascot for Benito Mussolini’s
fascist party. I’ve already talked about Mussolini and Fascism in this video here,
but it was a symbol of roman nostalgia, and to symbolise the power of the state. It’s
common in fascist movements to try and restore the state to a perceived point of greatness
from the past. The vaguer the, better. It seems while the symbol of fascism in Germany
has gained quite a stigma, see more on that here, the symbol for Fascism in Italy was
a little too widespread to disappear like its Nazi swirl cousin. It seems to still remain
as a symbol for government and collective power and features on all sorts of heraldry.
Heck, it was on the US dime until 1945. HOWEVER, and you knew you weren’t gonna
get a Rome lecture without one of my low T beta rants did you?!? The far right have adopted
the Fasces along with a lot of symbols from antiquity for decades now.
I know the far right doesn’t care about historical accuracy. I mean, these are self-described
rationals who take the christian side of the crusades, but that’s a fight for a future
video. Not only that, but their constant misuse and misappropriation of classical symbols
has little in the realm of academic rigor. Examples would be the Charlottesville alt
righter who tried to reference Leonidas in ancient greek on a flag, but instead just
wrote gibberish in Greek letters to look smart. There was the Return of Kings headline referred
to Brute as Brutae, so in the feminine plural form.
And of course, there was Paul Joseph Watson’s meltdown when he tried to make a stink about
insisting the Romans were all white. When tons of historians including my mate Mike
Stuchbery showed Rome was a diverse multiracial empire, Watson simply doubled down by citing
drawings from an old 20th-century children’s textbook.
So, the point of this is the standards of evidence are low, and the fasces, like a lot
of classical, and hate groups have appropriated pre-Christian European symbols. Don’t let
them. Context is critical, and Nazis have a good track record at ruining symbols. Though
maybe the fasces isn’t quite worth saving at this point. But that’s just me.
Did you know I do a stream every Sunday night? It’s true! It’s a show called So that
Happened, and in it, I hang out with Emperor Tigerstar, and Cody from the Alternate History
Hub. If a show like that piques your interest, you can find it at 7 PM eastern time every
Sunday on the Alternate History Hub Channel. I’d like to thank Aven McMaster and the
wonderful folks at The Endless Knot for their help with this subject. Link to their history
and classics podcast in the doobly do. I’d also like to thank 12tone for the theme song.
Now, I’d like to celebrate this stretch goal by thanking each of my patrons, because
I think if I wait til the next one, there might be too many for it to be feasible.
So thank you, Don and Kerry Johnson, Kolbeinn Mani, Garrick Kwan, Todd Weiler, Matt Standish,
Shawn MacIntyre, SirionAUT, Wayne Allen, datalal624, Diane Schuman, Greg Amann, Sebastian Winterflood,
Quinlan Vuong, Phrenomythic, Mr. Beat, Kirt, Tarkan Sarim, W. R. Cawston, Rob MacDougall,
Tod Kurt, Riccardo Sacchetto, Carmen Kohli, Madeleine Brouwer, Stuart Shipley, diiasze,
Christopher Cleghorn, Tomas Bazinek, Bo Mertz, Vee, Carla Hoffman, Jeremiah Basler, Kelly
Barnes, FableReader, Soliloquy, Will Fox, Name Explain, and Michael.
Thank you all very much. The next stretch goal is the Iranian Revolution, and you can
make that video happen at Patreon.com/StepBackHistory. Thank you all and sit tight for more Step
Back.