Fasces (pronounced /ˈfæsiːz/, a plurale tantum, from the Latin word fascis, meaning "bundle"[1]) symbolize summary power and jurisdiction, and/or "strength through unity".[2] Fasces frequently occur as a charge in heraldry, and should not be confused with the related term, fess, which in French heraldry is called a fasce.
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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.
The term is related to the modern Italian word fascio, used in the 20th C. to designate peasant cooperatives and industrial workers' unions.
Numerous governments and other authorities have used the image of the fasces for 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, has avoided the stigma associated with much of fascist symbolism, and many authorities continue to display them, including the federal government of the United States.
The fasces was a prominent symbol of Benito Mussolini's Fascist Party and the movement was named for the axe and rods. Fasces are included in the national emblem of the French Republic.
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 consuls (and proconsuls), praetors (and propraetors) and dictators. 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 untie these ribbons 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).
The following cases all involve the adoption of the fasces as a visual image or icon; no actual physical re-introduction has occurred.
 US "Mercury" dime reverse. |
 The Mace of the United States House of Representatives, designed to resemble fasces. |
 The seal of the Senate. Note the crossed fasces at the bottom. |
 The Lincoln Memorial with the fronts of the chair's arms shaped to resemble fasces |
 The emblem of the Knights of Columbus |
 The seal of the US Courts Administrative Office. |
 Above the door to Chicago's City Hall |
 Shoulder Sleeve Insignia of the 18th MP Brigade |
 Shoulder Sleeve Insignia of the 42nd MP Brigade |
A review of the images (see images below) included in Les Grands Palais de France Fontainebleau [5][6] reveals that French architects used the fasces 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/or of the Roman Empire, frequently in conjunction with other Roman symbols such as Roman armor and "SPQR" standards.[citation needed]
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The fasces appears on the helmet and the buckle insignia of the French Army's Autonomous Corps of Military Justice, as well as on that service's distinct cap badges for the prosecuting and defending lawyers in a court-martial.[citation needed]
The following cases all involve the adoption of the fasces as a symbol or icon; no actual physical re-introduction has occurred.
Tassi Scandone Elena, Verghe, scuri e fasci littori in Etruria - Contributo allo studio degli insignia imperii. Volume n. 36 della Biblioteca di Studi Etruschi dell'Istituto Nazionale di Studi Etruschi ed Italici, Istituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali, Pisa - Roma, 2001. ISBN 88-8147-263-5. Pp. 272, con VII tavv. f.t.
FASCES, in Roman antiquities, bundles of elm or birch rods from which the head of an axe projected, fastened together by a red strap. Nothing is known of their origin, the tradition that represents them as borrowed by one of the kings from Etruria resting on insufficient grounds. As the emblem of official authority, they were carried by the lictors, in the left hand and on the left shoulder, before the higher Roman magistrates; at the funeral of a deceased magistrate they were carried behind the bier. The lictors and the fasces were so inseparably connected that they came to be used as synonymous terms. The fasces originally represented the power over life and limb possessed by the kings, and after the abolition of the monarchy, the consuls, like the kings, were preceded by twelve fasces. Within the precincts of the city the axe was removed, in recognition of the right of appeal (provocatio) to the people in a matter of life and death; outside Rome, however, each consul retained the axe, and was preceded by his own lictors, not merely by a single accensus (supernumerary), as was originally the case within the city when he was not officiating. Later, the lictors preceded the officiating consul, and walked behind the other. Valerius Publicola, the champion of popular rights, further established the custom that the fasces should be lowered before the people, as the real representatives of sovereignty (Livy ii. 7; Florus i. 9; Plutarch, Publicola, 1 o); lowering the fasces was also the manner in which an inferior saluted a superior magistrate. A dictator, as taking the place of the two consuls, had 24 fasces (including the axe even within the city); most of the other magistrates had fasces varying in number, with the exception of the censors, who, as possessing no executive authority, had none. Fasces were given to the Flamen Dialis and (after 42 B.C.) even to the Vestals. During the times of the republic, a victorious general, who had been saluted by the title of imperator by his soldiers, had his fasces crowned with laurel (Cicero, Pro Ligario, 3). Later, under the empire, when the emperor received the title for life on his accession, it became restricted to him, and the laurel was regarded as distinctive of the imperial fasces (see Mommsen, Romisches Staatsrecht, i., 188 7, p. 373).
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Categories: FAS-FER | Ancient Rome
   | The fasces as Ancient Roman icon - Legion XXIV - Fasces Page |
| | Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary - fasces - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary |
| | The fasces symbol and its role in French and US national iconography - French National Symbols: Fasces |
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