FASCES

'Fasces' (a ''plurale tantum'', from the Latin word ''fascis'', meaning "bundle"^[1]) symbolise summary power and jurisdiction, and/or "strength through unity."^[2]
The traditional Roman ''fasces'' consisted of a bundle of birch rods tied together with a red ribbon as a cylinder. In wartime they were wrapped around an axe. One interpretation of the symbolism suggests that despite the fragility of each independent single rod, as a bundle they exhibit strength.
Numerous governments and other authorities have used the image of the ''fasces'' as a symbol of power since the end of the Roman Empire. Italian fascism, which derives its name from the ''fasces'', arguably used this symbolism the most in the 20th century. The British Union of Fascists also used it in the 1930s. However, unlike for example the swastika, the ''fasces'' have avoided the stigma associated with fascist symbolism, and many authorities continue to display them.

Contents

Antiquity

The fasces in the United States of America

Various modern authorities and movements

The fasces in France

Images

See also

Notes

External links

Antiquity

The '''fasces lictoriae''' ("bundles of the lictors") (in Italian, '''fascio littorio''') symbolised power and authority (''imperium'') in ancient Rome. A corps of ''apparitores'' (subordinate officials) called ''lictors'' each carried fasces as a sort of staff of office before a magistrate, in a number corresponding to his rank, in public ceremonies and inspections, and bearers of fasces preceded praetors, propraetors, consuls, proconsuls, Masters of the Horse, dictators, and Caesars. During triumphs (public celebrations held in Rome after a military conquest) heroic soldiers — those who had suffered injury in battle — carried fasces in procession.
Roman historians recalled that twelve lictors had ceremoniously accompanied the Etruscan kings of Rome in the distant past, and sought to account for the number and to provide etymologies for the name ''lictor''.
Believed to date from Etruscan times, the symbolism of the fasces at one level suggested strength through unity. The bundle of rods bound together symbolizes the strength which a single rod lacks. The axe symbolized the state's power and authority. The rods symbolized the state's obligation to exercise restraint in the exercising of that power. The highest magistrates would have their lictors unbind the fasces they carried as a warning if approaching the limits of restraint.
The Romans adopted the symbol of the fasces from the Etruscans. It may have an earlier link to the eastern Mediterranean — such as to the labrys, the Anatolian and Minoan double-headed axe, later incorporated into the praetorial fasces.
Traditionally, fasces carried within the ''Pomerium'' — the limits of the sacred inner City of Rome — had their axe blades removed. This signified that under normal political circumstances, the ''imperium''-bearing magistrates did not have the judicial power of life and death; that power rested, within the city, with the people through the assemblies. However, during times of emergencies when the Roman Republic declared a dictatorship ''(dictatura)'', lictors attending to the dictator kept the axe-blades even inside the ''Pomerium'' — a sign that the dictator had the ultimate power in his own hands. But in 48 BC, guards holding bladed fasces guided Vatia Isauricus to the tribunal of Marcus Caelius, and Vatia Isauricus used one to destroy Caelius's magisterial chair (''sella curulis'').

The fasces in the United States of America

The following cases all involve the adoption of the fasces as a visual image or icon; no actual physical re-introduction has occurred.

★ The reverse of the United States "Mercury" dime (minted from 1916 to 1945) bears the design of a and an olive branch.

★ Two fasces appear on either side of the flag of the United States in the United States House of Representatives, representing the power of the House and the country.

★ The Mace of the United States House of Representatives is designed to resemble fasces, consisting of thirteen ebony rods bound together in the same fashion as the fasces, topped by a silver eagle on a globe.

★ The official seal of the United States Senate has as one component a pair of crossed fasces.

★ Fasces ring the base of the Statue of Freedom atop the United States Capitol building.

★ A frieze on the facade of the Supreme Court building depicts the figure of a Roman Centurion holding a fasces, to represent "order". [1]

★ At the Lincoln Memorial, Lincoln's seat of state bears the fasces on the fronts of its arms and on the pylons flanking the main staitcase leading into the memorial.

★ Four fasces flank the two bronze plaques on either side of the bust of Lincoln memorializing his Gettysburg Address at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

★ The fasces appears on the state seal of Colorado, USA, beneath the "All-seeing eye" (or Eye of Providence) and above the mountains and mines.

★ On the seal of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, a figure carries a fasces; the seal appears on the borough flag.

★ Used as part of the Knights of Columbus emblem (designed in 1883).

★ The top border of the Los Angeles Police Department badge features a fasces. (1940)

★ The regimental crest of the U.S. 71st Infantry Regiment of the New York National Guard consisted of a gold fasces set on a blue background.

Various modern authorities and movements

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

★ Napoleon and the French Revolution; this emblem remains on the front cover of French passports and as part of the French coat of arms

★ The Spanish gendarmerie Guardia Civil

★ In the 1920s, Italian Fascism, adapting aesthetic elements of ancient Rome, attempted to portray itself as a revival of its Roman imperial past by adopting the fasces for its symbol, as an emblem of the increased strength of the individual ''fascis'' when bound into the entire bundle.

★ Both the Norwegian and Swedish Police Service have double fasces in their logos.

★ The Miners Flag (also known as the "Diggers' Banner"), the standard of 19th-century gold-miners in the colony of Victoria, in Australia, included the fasces as a symbol of unity and strength of common purpose. This flag symbolized the movement prior to the rebellion at the Eureka Stockade (1854).

★ The Coat of arms of Norte de Santander, a Department of Colombia, and its capital Cúcuta, both feature a fasces.

The fasces in France

A review of the images included in ''Les Grands Palais de France 'Fontainebleau' '' ^[3]
and ^[4] reveals that the fasces were being used as a decorative devise as early as during the reign of Louis XIII and continued to be employed through the periods of Napoleon I's Empire. The fasces were typically shown in a context of the Roman Republic and/or the Roman Empire, frequently in conjunction with other Roman symbols such as Roman armor and 'SPQR' standards.

Images

See also

★ fascio (usage 1890s to World War I)

★ ferula

★ Labrys

★ staff of office

★ fascine

★ francisca

Notes

1. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary: fasces
2. Fascio
3. ''Les Grands Palais de France 'Fontainebleau' , I re Série, Styles Louis XV, Louis XVI, Empire, Labrairie Centrale D'Art Et D' Architecture, Ancienne Maison Morel, Ch. Eggimann, Succ, 106, Boulevard Saint Germain, Paris, 1910
4. ''Les Grands Palais de France 'Fontainebleau' '' , II me Série, Les Appartments D'Anne D'Autriche, De François I er, Et D'Elenonre La Chapelle, Labrairie Centrale D'Art Et D' Architecture, Ancienne Maison Morel, Ch. Eggimann, Succ, 106, Boulevard Saint Germain, Paris, 1912

External links

★ A definition

★ Fasces on flags

★ The fasces as Ancient Roman icon