Fasces
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Fasces (IPA: /ˈfæsiːz/, a plurale tantum, from the Latin word fascis, meaning "bundle"[1]) symbolize summary power and jurisdiction, and/or "strength through unity".[2]
The traditional Roman fasces consisted of a bundle of white birch rods, tied together with a red leather ribbon into a cylinder, and often including a bronze axe (or sometimes two) amongst the rods, with the blade(s) on the side, projecting from the bundle.[3]. It was used as a symbol of the Roman Republic in many circumstances, including being carried in processions, much the way a flag might be carried today.
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[edit] Symbolism
It has been suggested that since the rods in a bundle are harder to break, or harder for the axe to cut, the fasces symbolises the message "united we stand" and represents the republican form of government as an alliance of citizens. Alternately the rods represent the authority to punish citizens, the axe represents the authority to execute them and the ribbons represent the restraint of that authority.
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 has also been used to hearken back to the Roman republic, particularly by those who see themselves as modern-day successors to the old republic and/or its ideals. 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, as a widespread and long-established symbol in the West, have avoided the stigma associated with much of fascist symbolism, and many authorities continue to display them.
[edit] Antiquity
The fasces lictoriae ("bundles of the lictors") 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. 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 ribbons binding the rods together 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.
Fasces-symbolism may derive — via the Etruscans — from the eastern Mediterranean, with 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; within the city, that power rested 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).
[edit] See also
- fascio (usage 1890s to World War I)
- ferula
- Labrys
- staff of office
- fascine
- francisca
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
