Roman salute

The Oath of the Horatii (1784), by Jacques-Louis David

The Roman salute is a gesture in which the arm is held out forward straight, with palm down, and fingers touching. Sometimes the arm is raised upward at an angle, sometimes it is held out parallel to the ground. A well known symbol of Fascism, it is commonly perceived to be based on a classical Roman custom. No Roman work of art displays this salute, however, nor does any Roman text describe it.

Beginning with Jacques-Louis David's painting The Oath of the Horatii (1784), an association of the gesture with Roman republican and imperial culture emerged through late 18^th and early 19^th century French art. The association with ancient Roman traditions was further developed in popular culture through late nineteenth and early twentieth century plays and films. These included Giovanni Pastrone’s epic Cabiria (1914), whose screenplay was written by Italian nationalist Gabriele d'Annunzio. In a case of life imitating art, D'Annunzio appropriated the salute as a neo-imperial ritual when he led the occupation of Fiume in 1919. It was soon after adopted by the Italian Fascist party followed by the Nazi party.

History

Early Roman images

Trajan's Column, Plate LXII. Onlookers raise their arms to acclaim the emperor

Augustus of Prima Porta

The modern gesture consists of stiffly extending the right arm frontally and raising it roughly 135 degrees from the body’s vertical axis, with the palm of the hand facing down and the fingers stretched out and touching each other.^[1] According to common perceptions, this salute was based on an ancient Roman custom.^[1] However not a single Roman work of art, be it sculpture, coinage, or painting, displays a salute of this kind.^[1] It is also unknown to Roman literature and is never mentioned by ancient historians of Rome.^[1]

The gesture of the raised right arm or hand in Roman and other ancient cultures that exists in surviving art and literature had a significantly different function and is never identical with the modern straight-arm salute.^[1] Sculptures commemorating military victories such as those on the Arch of Titus, the Arch of Constantine, or on the Column of Trajan are the best known examples.^[2] However these monuments do not display a single clear image.^[2]

For example, three such scenes have been analyzed on Trajan's Column.^[3][4] On plate 99 (LXII, Scenes LXXXIV-LXXXV), six onlookers have their hand raised to Trajan, half extended straight, half bent at the elbow.^[4] On the ones with straight arms, only one palm is open but held vertically. The fingers of the three with bent arms are pointed downward.^[4] On Plate 167(CII, Scene CXLI), three Dacians extend their right arms toward the emperor, their open hands held vertically and their fingers spread. None of the Romans are returning their gesture.^[4] On plates 122-123(LXXIV-LXXVI, Scenes CI-CII), the emperor on horseback is greeted by a unit of legionaries. None of the 15 legionaries is raising his entire arm. An officer facing Trajan has his arm close to his body, the lower arm raised, his index finger pointing up, and the other fingers closed. Behind him, two right hands are raised with fingers spread wide. Trajan himself holds his upper right hand close to his body, extending only the lower arm.^[4]

The images closest in appearance to a raised arm salute are scenes in Roman sculpture and coins which show an adlocutio, acclamatio, adventus, or profectio.^[5] These are occasions when a high ranking official, such as a general or the Emperor, addresses individuals or a group, oftentimes soldiers. Unlike modern custom, in which both the leader and the people he addresses raise their arms, most of these scenes show only the senior official raising his hand.^[6] Occasionally it is a sign of greeting or benevolence, but usually it is used as an indication of power.^[6]

An example of such a gesture can be seen in the statue of Augustus of Prima Porta which follows certain guidelines set out by oratory scholars of his day.^[7] In Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero states that the orator "will control himself in the entire frame of his body and in the manly angle of his flanks, with the extension of the arm in the impassioned moments of speech, and by drawing in the arm in relaxed moods".^[7] Quintilian states in Institutio Oratoria that "Experts do not permit the hand to be raised above the level of the eyes or lowered beneath the breast; to such a degree is this true that it is considered a fault to direct the hand above the head or lower it to the lower part of the belly. It may be extended to the left within the limits of the shoulder, but beyond that it is not fitting."^[7]

18th–19th centuries

The Tennis Court Oath, by J-L David

A study for The Distribution of the Eagle Standards, by J-L David

A picture from the Illustrated Exhibitor (1852) depicting the installation of an early German king

The association of the gesture with Roman republican culture emerged in 18th-century France with revolutionary and anti-monarchist movements of the era.^[8] This was through several paintings in the Neoclassical style that depicted Roman heroes adopting variants of the gesture. The first, most famous, and influential of these is Jacques-Louis David's painting The Oath of the Horatii (1784).^[9]

The painting illustrates a pledge of loyalty to the Roman republic.^[8] The principal sources for the story behind David's Oath are the first book of Livy (sections 24-6) which was elaborated by Dionysius in book 3 of his Roman Antiquities.^[10] However, the moment depicted in David's painting is his own invention.^[11] In the story, the brothers swear an oath to the republic, not their father. Ancient roman coins depicting the oath scenes show the warriors holding or pointing their swords down, not upward as in David's painting.^[12]

The story concerns three Roman brothers, called the Horatii, who fight with three other brothers on the enemy side, called the Curiattii.^[13] Two of the brothers die, and the one surviving brother murders one of his sisters in a fit of rage.^[13] David began with sketches based on a sequel by Livy and adapted by Pierre Corneille called Horace, which depicts the father of the murdered girl appealing to the senate for clemency.^[13] David eventually abandoned this approach and based his painting on an earlier section of the story, in which the three brothers take an oath to save Rome or die.^[13]

Dominating the center of the picture is the brothers' father, facing left. He has both hands raised.^[11] His left hand is holding three swords, while his left hand is empty, with fingers stretched but not touching.^[11] The brother closest to the viewer is holding his arm almost horizontally.^[11] The brother on the left is holding his arm slightly higher, while the third brother holds his hand higher still.^[11] While the first brother extends his right arm, the other two are extending their left arms. The succession of arms raised progressively higher leads to a gesture closely approximating the Fascist salute, albeit with the "wrong" arms.^[11]

After the French Revolution of 1789, David was commissioned to depict the formation of the revolutionary government in a similar style. In the Tennis Court Oath (1792) the National Assembly are all depicted with their arms outstretched, united in an upward gesture comparable to that of the Horatii, as they swear to create a new constitution.^[14] The painting was never finished, but an immense drawing was exhibited in 1791 along side the Oath of the Horatii ^[15] As in the Oath of the Horatii, David conveys the unity of minds and bodies in the service of the patriotic ideal.^[15] But in this drawing, he takes the subject further, uniting the people beyond just family ties and across different classes, religions, and philosophical opinions.^[15]

After the republican government was replaced by Napoleon's imperial régime, David further deployed the gesture in The Distribution of the Eagle Standards (1810).^[16] But unlike his previous paintings representing republican ideals, in Eagle Standards the oath of allegiance is pledged to a central authority figure, and in imperial fashion.^[16] The imperial oath is seen in other paintings, such as Jean-Léon Gérôme's popular Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant (Hail Caesar! They Who Are About to Die Salute You) of 1859.^[17]

A raised arm gesture was also depicted in a nineteenth century illustration of the installation of an ancient Germanic king.^[18]. The modern Brockhaus Encyclopedia repeats the claims of a Germanic origin for the salute, stating that "the Nazi salute was derived from the Late Germanic Time".^[19]

On October 12, 1892, the Bellamy salute was demonstrated as the hand gesture to accompany the Pledge of Allegiance in the United States. The inventor of the saluting gesture was James B. Upham, junior partner and editor of the The Youth's Companion.^[20] There was no claim to a Roman origin for the salute. Bellamy recalled Upham, upon reading the pledge, came into the posture of the salute, snapped his heels together, and said "Now up there is the flag; I come to salute; as I say 'I pledge allegiance to my flag,' I stretch out my right hand and keep it raised while I say the stirring words that follow."^[20]

Salute in theater and film

The gesture, already established in the United States through the Bellamy salute, has been traced to the Broadway production of the play Ben-Hur.^[21] The play, based on Lew Wallace's book Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, opened on Broadway in November, 1899 and proved to be a great success.^[22] Photographs show several scenes using the gesture, including one of Ben-Hur greeting a seated sheik and another of a small crowd so greeting Ben-Hur in his chariot.^[23] Neither Wallace's novel nor text for the theatrical production mentions a raised arm salute.^[23] The salute was evidently added in keeping with the exaggerated style of acting in nineteenth century theater, which in turn was influenced by acting in the silent theater.^[24]

The salute frequently occurs in films set in antiquity, such as the American Ben-Hur (1907) or the Italian Nerone (1908), although such films do not yet standardize it or make it exclusively Roman.^[25] In Spartaco (1914), even the slave Spartacus uses it.^[25] Notable other examples of the salute, by now a standard part of ancient iconography in the cinema, appear in Ben-Hur (1925) and in Cecil B. DeMille’s Sign of the Cross (1932) and Cleopatra (1934), although the execution of the gesture is still variable.^[25]

Of special note is the use in Giovanni Pastrone’s colossal epic Cabiria (1914).^[26] The screenplay was attributed to Italian nationalist Gabriele d'Annunzio, known as the "poet-warrior".^[27] Inspired by the Italo-Turkish War, in which Italy conquered the North African Ottoman province of Tripolitania, Pastrone perused a politically volatile issue.^[28] The film highlights Italy's Roman past and the "monstrous" nature of Carthaginian society, which is contrasted with the "nobility" of Roman society.^[29] Cabiria was one of several films of the period that "helped resuscitate a distant history that legitimized Italy's past and inspired its dreams" and which "delivered the spirit for conquest that seemed to arrive from the distant past", thereby presaging the "political rituals of fascism", "thanks..to its prime supporter and apostle, Gabriele d'Annunzio."^[30]

Variations on the salute occur throughout Cabiria on the part of Romans and Africans.^[31] Scipio uses the gesture once.^[31] Furius Axilla, the stories fictitious hero, twice employs it as a farewell greeting to his hosts.^[31] The Numidian king Massinissa, guest of the Carthaginian Hasdrubal, raises his right hand and is so greeted in return, once by the strongman Maciste.^[31] Princess Sophonisba and King Syphax mutually great each other by raising their hands and declining their bodies.^[31] The ethnic and gestural variety of its occurrence in Cabria is seen as further evidence that the salute is a modern invention to demonstrate to viewers the exotic nature of antiquity.^[31]

Adoption by Fascists

Benito Mussolini and Hitler, Mussolini giving the Roman salute.

Adolf Hitler at a Nazi party rally in Nuremberg, cf 1928

D'Annunzio, who had scripted Cabiria, appropriated the salute when he occupied Fiume in 1919.^[32] D'Annunzio has been described as the John the Baptist of Italian Fascism,^[33] as virtually the entire ritual of Fascism was invented by D'Annunzio during his occupation of Fiume and his leadership of the "Italian Regency of Carnaro".^[34] Besides the Roman salute, these included the balcony address, the cries of "Eia, eia, eia! Alala!", the dramatic and rhetorical dialogues with the crowd, and the use of religious symbols in new secular settings.^[33]

Like other neo-Imperial rituals utilized by D'Annunzio, the salute became part of the Italian fascist movement's symbolic repertoire.^[32] On January 31, 1923, the Ministry of Education instituted a ritual honoring the flag in schools using the Roman salute.^[32] In 1925, as Mussolini began his fascitization of the state, the salute was gradually adopted by the regime, and by December 1, 1925 all state civil administrators were required to use it.^[32]

Achille Starace, the Italian Fascist Party secretary, pushed for measures to make the use of the Roman salute generally compulsory, denouncing hand shaking as bourgeois.^[32]. He further extolled the salute as "more hygienic, more aesthetic, and shorter."^[32] By 1932, the salute was adopted as the substitute for the handshake.^[32]

The symbolic value of the gesture grew, and it was felt that the proper salute "had the effect of showing the fascist man's decisive spirit, which was close to that of ancient Rome".^[35] The salute was seen to demonstrate the fascist's "decisive spirit, firmness, seriousness, and acknowledgment and acceptance of the regime's hierarchical structure".^[36] It was further felt that the correct physical gesture brought forth a change in character.^[37]

In 1938, the party abolished handshaking in films and theater, and on November 21, 1938 the Ministry of Popular Culture issued orders banning the publishing of photographs showing people shaking hands.^[37] Even official photographs of visiting dignitaries were retouched to remove the image of their handshaking.^[37]

In Germany the salute, sporadically used by the Nazi Party since 1923, was made compulsory within the movement in 1926.^[38] Called the Hitler salute or Hitler greeting (Hitlergruß), it functioned both as an expression of commitment within the party and as a demonstrative statement to the outside world.^[39] Yet in spite of this demand for the outward display of obedience, the drive to gain acceptance did not go unchallenged, even within the movement.^[39]

Early objections focused on its resemblance to the Roman salute employed by Fascist Italy, and hence on it not being Germanic.^[39] In response, efforts were made to establish its pedigree and invent a proper tradition after the fact.^[39]

Rudolph Hess published an article titled "The Fascist Greeting" in June 1928, claiming that the gesture was used as early as 1921, before the Nazis had heard about the Italian Fascists.^[40] He admits in the article that "The NSDAP's introduction of the raised-arm greeting approximately two years ago still gets some people's blood boiling. Its opponents suspect the greeting of being un-Germanic. They accuse it of merely aping the (Italian) Fascists".^[40] He goes on to ask "and even if the decree from two years ago (Hess's order that all party members use it) is seen as an adaption of the Fascist gesture, is that really so terrible?"^[40] Ian Kershaw points out that Hess did not deny the likely influence from Fascist Italy, even if indeed the salute had been used sporadically in 1921 as Hess claimed.^[41]

The compulsory use of the Hitler greeting for all public employees followed a directive issued by Reich Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick on July 13, 1933, one day before the ban on all non-Nazi parties.^[42] The decree also required the use of the salute during the singing of the national anthem and the Horst-Wessel-Lied. A rider to the decree, added two weeks later, stipulated that if physical disability prevented the use of the raising of the right arm, "then it is correct to carry out the Greeting with the left arm."^[42]

Because of the similarity between the Bellamy salute and the Nazi salute, President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted the hand-over-the-heart gesture as the salute to be rendered by civilians during the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem in the United States, instead of the Bellamy salute. This was done when Congress officially adopted the Flag Code on 22 June 1942.^[43] There was initially some resistance to dropping the Bellamy salute, for example from the Daughters of the American Revolution,^[44] but this opposition died down quickly.

Post-war use

The Stanford Band doing the Roman Salute to the Spirit of Troy

Use of the salute and accompanying phrases has been forbidden by law in Germany since the end of World War II. Section 86 of the German Penal Code provides for punishment of up to three years in prison for anyone using the salute, unless it is used in a clearly ironic manner critical of the regime.^[45] Versions of the salute are used by neo-Nazis, who also use the number 88 to stand for "Heil Hitler" (the 8 standing for H, the eighth letter of the alphabet).^[46] One version is the so-called Kühnen salute with extended thumb, index and middle finger, also forbidden in Germany.^[47]

The Tamil separatist organization LTTE were understood to use the Nazi salute while saluting their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in 2003.^[48] In 2005, Italian footballer Paolo Di Canio created controversy by using the gesture on several occasions to salute S.S. Lazio fans. Di Canio has also expressed admiration for Mussolini.^[49][50]

Notes

References

• Kershaw, Ian (2001). The "Hitler myth": Image and reality in the Third Reich (2, reissue ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192802062, 9780192802064. 
• Ledeen, Michael Arthur (2001). D'Annunzio: the first duce (2, illustrated ed.). Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765807424, 9780765807427. 
• Falasca-Zamponi, Simonetta (2000). Fascist spectacle: the aesthetics of power in Mussolini's Italy. Studies on the history of society and culture. 28 (illustrated ed.). University of California Press. ISBN 0520226771, 9780520226777. 
• Parker, Noel (1990). Portrayals of revolution: images, debates, and patterns of thought on the French Revolution (illustrated ed.). SIU Press. ISBN 0809316846, 9780809316847. 
• Allert, Tilman; Translated by Jefferson Chase (April 2009). The Hitler Salute: On the Meaning of a Gesture (Picador ed.). Picador. ISBN 0312428308, 9780312428303. 
• Winkler, Martin M. (2009). The Roman Salute: Cinema, History, Ideology. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. ISBN 0814208649, 9780814208649. 

External links

• President of Republic of China (Taiwan) Ma Ying Jeou giving Roman salute
• Former President of Republic of China (Taiwan) Chen Shui Bian giving Roman salute
• Officials in the Republic of China (Taiwan) being sworn in with Roman Salute
• Gerome, Jean-Léon (1859). "Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant". University of Chicago. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/gladiators/ave.html. Retrieved 2009-08-29. 
• Gerome, Jean-Léon (1859). "Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant". Yale Univeristy. http://artgallery.yale.edu/pages/collection/popups/pc_european/details27.html. Retrieved 2009-08-29. 
• Photograph and "cartoon view" explanation of Trajan's Column, from McMaster University Humanities department

See also

• Ave
• Clenched fist
• Thumbs-up, Thumbs-down

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