ABOUT THIS BOOK

The raised-arm salute was the most popular symbol of Fascism, Nazism, and related political ideologies in the twentieth century and is said to have derived from an ancient Roman custom. Although modern historians and others employ it as a matter of course, the term “Roman salute” is a misnomer. The true origins of this salute can be traced back to the popular culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that dealt with ancient Rome: historical plays and films. The visual culture of stage and screen from the 1890s to the 1920s was chiefly responsible for the wide familiarity of Europeans and Americans with forms of the raised-arm salute and made it readily available for political purposes.

The Roman Salute: Cinema, History, Ideology by Martin M. Winkler presents extensive evidence for the modern origin of the raised-arm salute from well before the birth of Fascism and traces its varieties and its dissemination. The continuing presence of certain aspects of Fascism makes an examination of all its facets desirable, especially when the true origins of a symbol as potent as the salute and the history of its dissemination are barely known to classicists and historians of ancient Rome on the one hand, and to scholars of modern European history, on the other. Thus this book will appeal to classicists and historians, including film historians, and will be of interest to readers beyond the academy.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Martin M. Winkler is professor of classics at George Mason University.

REVIEWS

“This book draws on a breathtaking range of scholarship from antiquity, modern history, modern culture, and cinema history. It will interest students of film and also cultural historians and the growing number of classicists who are interested in the ancient world on film.” —Ward Briggs, University of South Carolina

“The scholarship is sound and thorough and comparable, if not superior, to similar recent books on manifestations of antiquity in popular culture.” —Anthony Corbeill, University of Kansas

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
	History and Ideology: Half-Truths and Untruths
	Ideology and Spectacle: The Importance of Cinema
	About This Book
Chapter 1.	Saluting Gestures in Roman Art and Literature
Chapter 2.	Jacques-Louis David¿s Oath of the Horatii
Chapter 3.	Raised-Arm Salutes in the United States before Fascism: From the Pledge of Allegiance to Ben-Hur on State
Chapter 4.	Early Cinema: American and European Epics
Chapter 5.	Cabiria: The Intersection of Cinema and Politics
	Gabriele D¿Annunzio and Cabiria
	Fiume: The Roman Salute Becomes a Political Symbol
	From D¿Annunzio to Mussolini
Chapter 6.	Nazi Cinema and Its Impact on Hollywood¿s Roman Epics: From Leni Riefenstahl to Quo Vadis
Chapter 7.	Visual Legacies: Antiquity on the Screen after Quo Vadis
	Cinema: From Salome to Alexander
	Television: From Star Trek to Rome
Chapter 8	Conclusion
Appendices
	1. Livy¿s Account of the Horatii and Curiatii
	2. The Roman Salute According to Il Capo-Squadro Balilla
	3. Modern Scholarship on Fascism, Nazism, and Classical Antiquity
Bibliography
Index