The Fateful Hills of Rome - Fascist Italy and the Reforms of the Romanità

Dax Tate

University of Washington Honors 211D

The Classical Tradition

Professor Stephen Hinds

March 13th, 2018

We dream of a Roman Italy, that is to say wise, strong, disciplined, and imperial” (Painter, 3). So

declared Benito Mussolini to his loyal fascist followers on April 22nd, 1922. Just 6 months later,

the infamous March on Rome would put him in power as Italy’s dictator, with lasting effects on

Italy and the world. Mussolini’s fascists had extensive visions of reform for Italy – too extensive

for any standard governing procedure. From the beginning, Mussolini relied heavily on a concept

known as romanità, which Oxford Dictionary defines as “admiration of ancient Roman culture

or institutions.” 1 While this definition is technically accurate, Italian fascism proved that

romanità in practice was much more than just admiration. Throughout his rule, Mussolini used

the flexibility of the Roman tradition by selectively reviving many of its most prominent

legacies. By doing this the fascists were able to implement cultural, militaristic, and political

reforms on an incredible scale; at the same time, their flexible and selective use of romanità

would ultimately corrode the very support it built.

The so-called “cult of the romanità” was not a foreign concept to 20th century Italians.

The researcher Romke Visser points out that the appropriation of Italy’s Roman past had actually

begun decades before the March on Rome. At that time, however, it was used on a

“metaphorical” level, and “concerned mostly the legitimation of Italian colonial policy in the

Mediterranean.” 2 The use of Rome in this context was effective, justifying efforts to create an

overseas colonial empire; but it was still only a “metaphorical” usage, and therefore the scope of

its influence was limited. Before 1920, Rome was a part of Italy’s heritage that was invoked

mainly by and for scholars and elites. Mussolini’s romanità, however, dominated Italian society

from 1922 to 1945, and became a core part of the Italian consciousness.

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 This was made possible by the fascists’ thorough investment in cultural reform. Linking

fascism to “Romanism” was an early task for Mussolini, and one he excelled at. Even our word

“fascist” is derived from the Roman fascio littori, or axe and bundle symbol, which the fascists

spread throughout Italy. They included it “on currency and stamps, on books and banners, on

monuments and on the façade of public buildings,” to name a few. 3 This widespread symbolism

was hard to miss, and spread romanità through Italy. One of the easiest ways for Mussolini to

associate modern and ancient Italian culture was through festivals. Just six months after

assuming power, he declared April 21st to be the “Birth of Rome” festival. This day had already

been celebrated in Italy, but beginning in 1923 it took on the role of “Fascist Day of Labor.” 4

This festival, ostensibly celebrating the foundation of ancient Rome, promoted fascist ideals

through speeches and celebrations. Another festival that conveniently fell in Mussolini’s reign

was the bimillennium of the poet Virgil, which took place in 1930. Mussolini’s regime was built

on history and archaeology, and thus from the beginning was dependent on scholars to help

ground fascist programs in Roman precedent. Virgil’s usefulness to the cultural reforms of the

fascists can hardly be understated. “Virgil,” Professor Andrea Giardina explains,

covered the whole range of possibilities: as foreshadower of Christianity, he was the symbol of

the agreement between the fascism and the Catholic Church; as poet of the country life, he was

the ancient soul of the fascist ruralism; as celebrator of the Roman domination, he was also the

prophet of the power wish of the Mussolinian Italy; as poet of the pacification after the disaster of

the civil wars, he was, ultimately, the mirror of the Italy pacified by fascism. 5

The broad array of characteristics to be found in a single character like Virgil illustrates how

flexible romanità was as a tool for reform. Even when built on false or undecided conclusions –

such as Virgil’s Eclogue IV foreshadowing Christ’s birth – Virgil’s bimillennium allowed

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fascists to simultaneously promote a renewed alliance with Catholicism, support their “militant

rural” reforms (discussed below), and enlist scholarly support for Mussolini’s rule and the fascist

regime. Supported by a system of scholarly patronage that put cooperative intellectuals into top

positions, festivals like the Birth of Rome and Virgil’s bimillennium were important steps in

fascist cultural reforms.

No revival of Roman culture would have been complete without architecture. Mussolini’s

obsession with Roman buildings, monuments, and architectural style is well-documented. A

major project from 1924 to its completion in 1932 was the Via dell'Impero, or Road of the

Empire. 6 It cleared out vast areas of recent, medieval, and sometimes even ancient structures in

order to isolate the most imposing monuments. As one fascist supporter explained, it “captured

the unique vision of today’s Rome, and having restored to the life of the people the most

beautiful structures, formerly suffocated by superstructures, hovels and alleys. It will have the

greatest importance in the orientation of the new Italian taste.” 7 The Via dell'Impero was a

project that disregarded all of Italian history from the fall of Rome to the rise of fascism. This

project, far from being met with disdain, helped to immerse Italians in a culture that brought

ancient Rome to life around them, and inspired them to embrace the fascists’ Roman-branded

reforms. To illustrate this, the attached image depicts Mussolini inaugurating the road on

horseback. 8 With a backdrop dominated by monuments like the Colosseum, he paraded in front

of the Italian masses, a portrait of ancient Roman imperialism and dominance. With the support

of selective architectural projects like the Via dell'Impero, the fascists transformed the culture of

an only recently-unified Italy, and revived the image of ancient Rome.

With the cultural transformation, the fascists were able to use romanità as a universal

Italian value. This universalization lended itself to many reforms, but the militaristic reforms

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were the most drastic and the most visible. In the path to World War II, Italy increasingly

Romanized their military affairs. With the 1936 conquest of Ethiopia, Mussolini grandly

declared “after fifteen centuries, the reappearance of the empire on the fateful hills of Rome.” In

Romanized Italy, conquering another country did not create a colony. Instead, “in the tradition of

Rome,” it created a fascist empire, which benefited the conquered as well as the conquerors. 9

The conquest of Ethiopia created an illusion of unquestionable power to the Italians, temporarily

fulfilling the promised grandeur of romanità. It proved to the Italian people that Roman character

had made their military more formidable. Similarly, the fascists painted their European enemies

in Roman terms. Hostile powers, especially Great Britain, were painted as immoral, relying on

dishonest commercialism. They were propagandized as the historical opposite of ancient Rome:

Carthage. This had the important effect of setting Italy and the Allied Powers apart as “natural”

enemies, who differed at the very cores of their values. Mussolini even went so far as to name

World War II “the fourth Punic War,” referring to the series of Roman-Carthaginian Wars from

ancient times. 10 Besides the obvious implication of victory (Rome won each of the Punic Wars,

ultimately destroying Carthage in the third), this invocation called the Italians to arms, and

highlighted the central importance of the war to the fascists.

Mussolini also relied heavily on militaristic language and sentiment to reform an

incredible range of seemingly unrelated aspects of society. Already in 1921, before even coming

to power, Mussolini described the importance of disciplina in society, which culminated in the

fascist march:

We too have thus abolished and tend to abolish the herd, the procession. We abolished all of this

and replaced those old-fashioned forms of manifestation by our march, which imposes, on each

one, an individual control, which imposes on everyone order and discipline. Because we wish to

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 establish a solid national discipline, since we believe that, without such discipline, Italy cannot

become the Mediterranean and global nation that resides in our dreams. 11

The word “discipline” appears three times in as many sentences, showing how central the image

of Roman militarism was to the fascists’ reforms. The speech simultaneously provides an end

goal for Italians, longing for a “Mediterranean and global nation,” while calling on all Italians to

embrace disciplina to achieve that goal. Even the handshake was subject to reform, being

replaced with the saluto romano, performed by raising the right arm and showing a flat,

outstretched palm. 12 This military-style greeting, like the fascist march, used the perception of

ancient Rome as a society dictated by military order. Drawing on that image, the fascists were

able to support their reforms and their control by calling it disciplina, claiming it as a necessity in

the quest for a revived Roman Empire.

One of the most fascinating examples of these military-style reforms was the long-lasting

“militant ruralism” of fascist Italy. Agrarian reforms were a key focus of the fascists as they

sought to modernize agriculture and increase the standard of living for the large farming

population of early 20th-century Italy. Not surprisingly, they used ancient Rome as a rhetorical

framework for this project, drawing on themes of empire and of conquering nature in order to

encourage agricultural development at home and in newly-captured Ethiopia. However, the

fascists used distinctly military-style sentiments to push these reforms. The first real campaign,

started by Mussolini in 1925, was the “Battle of the Wheat,” which sought to make Italy more or

less self-sufficient in an increasingly hostile Europe. 13 By bringing militaristic expediency to the

process of rural modernization, the fascists embarked on a process of rapid, revolutionary

reforms that would have been difficult to promote otherwise. This justification can be seen even

more clearly in Mussolini’s statement that “it is the plow that traces the groove, but it is the

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sword that defends it. And the ploughshare and the blade are both made of hardened steel, just

like the faith within our hearts. 14 The metaphor was blunt, clear, and effective: Italian farmers

were understood as Roman warriors, and the success of the new Roman Empire would depend

on the steel of the plough as much as the steel of the sword. With the establishment of a culture

of romanità, and the presence of Roman militarism in every aspect of life, the fascists were able

to justify any reforms, even agricultural, with metaphors of Roman warriors.

One of the most definitive characteristics of a fascist state is its ultra-centralized

government. As in other areas, Italian fascists relied heavily on ancient Rome as a model for

their government. They did not, however, transplant Rome’s blueprints perfectly. Roman history,

notably, can be divided into two significant periods of government: Republic and Empire. In the

Italian cult of romanità, a hybrid was born. Professor Andrea Giardina explains that the fascist

government was modeled on a Roman Republic in which the people were fiercely dedicated to

their State life and performed civic duties without hesitation, while at the same time emulating an

Imperial Rome that saw a globalization of Rome and its values. In other words, says Giardina,

the fascists sought to combine “the moral strictness of the republican citizen and the prince’s

power, the austere synthesis of the nation and the charm of the imperial system in its mature

stage.” 15 The synchronization of these historically separate periods gave the fascists the perfect

model for their government. By selectively propagandizing Roman history, they built support for

a totalitarian state that was all-powerful in both domestic and international spheres.

Within this Romanized fascist state, Mussolini became the heir to figures like Caesar and

Augustus. And, encouraged by a potent culture of romanità as well as fascist patronage, scholars

often made the most prominent comparisons. Umberto Silvagni’s 1930 book Giulio Cesare

(Julius Caesar) laid out explicit connections between Caesar and Mussolini, comparing, for

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instance, the March on Rome to the crossing of the Rubicon. His stated purpose was perhaps

even more explicit: “[the] need for Caesar’s dictatorship and for the institution of a supreme

leader at the head of the republican government.” 16 Although this particular statement did not

mention Mussolini by name, he elsewhere claimed that the March on Rome “had restored to

honor, amongst Italians, ancient Rome and its great men!” 17 Silvagni desired to cement

Mussolini’s role as dictator, and the perception of Caesar as a strong, effective leader gave him

ample material to accomplish this. Built on the assumption that Caesar was good for Rome,

Silvagni argued that Mussolini was good for Italy. Other scholars were less transparent, but still

included notable statements of support, such as Saverio Anfuso’s dedication of his 1935 study of

Julius Caesar to “Caesarian and Fascist Imperial Rome.” 18 This six-word statement reflects the

remarkable effectiveness of romanità: The fascists created a culture in which Caesar, Fascism,

and Imperialism, all chronologically independent of one another, were synthesized under the

banner of “Rome,” all to support Mussolini’s cult of personality. Only Rome, with its long,

complex, and romanticized history, could provide a blueprint flexible enough for such a task.

Although Mussolini embraced his comparisons with Caesar, building statues of him

throughout Italy, his more obvious model was the Emperor Augustus. 19 Nearly two decades after

the March on Rome, amidst a marked decline in Roman luster, came the bimillennium of

Augustus. This massive, year-long festival, celebrated as the Mostra Augustea della Romanita or

Exhibition of Augustus’ Romanity, began in September 1937. 20 Advertisements for the festival

painted Augustus like a “mythological phenomenon” in his Roman values. 21 At the entrance was

a proclamation by Mussolini, calling on “Italians” to “strive to ensure that the glories of the past

are outstripped by the glories of the future!” 22 Within the exhibit were archaeological artifacts,

models, and “visual items of Roman practical genius” that emphasized the glory of Rome under

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Augustus. The exhibition selectively mixed history, archaeology, and visuals to demonstrate the

success of Italy under the strong rule of Augustus. At the same time, scholars were rushing to

compare Mussolini to Augustus, from their pacifications of Italy to their promotions of morals. It

was even pointed out favorably that, with the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), both had engaged

in military activity in Spain. 23 Even comparisons like this, however, were not benign. The

bimillennium of Augustus selectively showed the best results of having a strong, dictatorial ruler,

and therefore the comparisons between Augustus and Mussolini served to cement Mussolini’s

role as dictator.

The cult of the romanità, ultimately, was not sustainable. Fascist Italy faced a barrage of

criticisms (especially from Europe and the United States), but most attacks were perceptive

enough to target the very core of the fascist movement: its Romanness, or lack thereof. As Italian

scholars were competing to establish new comparisons between the accomplishments of

Mussolini and those of Caesar and Augustus, the American journalist George Seldes published

Sawdust Caesar: The Untold History of Mussolini and Fascism. In the book, which was popular

in America and Britain, he called Mussolini an “opportunist in search of an image.” 24 More

commonly, the Allies often degraded Mussolini as “Caesar made of plaster” and the Italians as

“Romans made of plaster.” 25 These insults struck at the heart of what Andrea Giardina calls “the

Theater of Romanity.” 26 The concept of “Romans made of plaster” emphasized Italy’s failures

to recreate the grandeur of Rome for most of its citizens, critiqued its inability to stand out from

the rest of the modern world, and, above all, targeted its relative weakness compared to its far

more powerful German ally.

Ultimately, romanità was built with two expiration dates. The first was that a fascism

built on the model of Rome necessarily had to be the strongest power, or at least the strongest of

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its allies. This power arrangement, in a world of modernizing countries, could only last so long.

Unfortunately for the fascists, being the lesser ally of Nazi Germany was fundamentally

incompatible with the essence of Rome, and turned the image of Rome into one that was often

embarrassing for the Italians, rather than strengthening. 27 The second, more pronounced

expiration date of the fascist Italians was Mussolini’s death. Disregarding the unceremonious

nature of his death (Mussolini was caught fleeing Italy, executed by firing squad, hung upside

down and stoned), the very existence of romanità without Mussolini was improbable. The

incredible lengths that scholars went to to associate Mussolini with Caesar and Augustus

elevated him to a near god-like status within the cult of romanità. Building his image was a

process that was still ongoing twenty years after the March on Rome, and even then he was a

“Caesar made of plaster” to the outside world. The likelihood of a successor achieving anything

near Mussolini’s level of influence was very low. Thus, the power relations of World War II

turned the cult of romanità into “Romans made of plaster,” Mussolini became an irreplaceable

figurehead, and, ultimately, the Italian fascist regime, modeled on an empire renowned for

strength and durability, collapsed unceremoniously in disgrace.

The selective and flexible cult of the romanità created by the fascists did many things

during Mussolini’s 33-year reign over Italy. With Roman festivals and architecture, it

transformed the culture of Italy. Rome was revived through celebrations of Rome’s foundation

and Virgil’s birth, through glorification of the Colosseum and the various forums of ancient

Rome. Once Rome was alive in the Italian consciousness, romanità revived the military might of

Rome. The “herd” was replaced with the march, the saluto romano took the place of the

handshake, and even the simplest wheat-farmer became a Roman legionnaire, battling for the

glory of the second Roman Empire. And atop that new Roman Empire, romanità placed a

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synthetic Roman government, complete with the totalitarian-state model of the Republic, the

grandeur and power of the Empire, and the near-divine leadership qualities of Caesar and

Augustus. However, romanità was not a perfect system. Its flexibility allowed for a self-

defeating alliance with a more powerful Nazi Germany, its selectiveness created an

unsustainable model of perfection for both empire and emperor. Ultimately, the “fateful hills of

Rome” so celebrated by Mussolini would, in the course of 33 years, witness the rise and fall of a

“sawdust Caesar” and his “Romans made of plaster.”

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Works Cited
1. Oxford Dictionaries. “Romanità.”
2. Visser, Romke. “Fascist Doctrine and the Cult of the Romanita.” 7.
3. Dunnett, Jane. “The Rhetoric of Romanità: Representations of Caesar in Fascist Theatre.” 245.
4. Painter, Borden W. Mussolini's Rome: Rebuilding the Eternal City. 4.
5. Giardina, Andrea. “The Fascist Myth of Romanity.” 59.
6. Painter. Mussolini’s Rome. 22-24.
7. Painter. 22.
8. World History. “Mussolini on Horseback.”
9. Dunnett. “Rhetoric of Romanità.” 247.
10. Giardina. “Fascist Myth of Romanity.” 67.
11. Giardina. 56.
12. Dunnett. 245.
13. Giardina. 62.
14. Giardina. 63.
15. Giardina. 64.
16. Dunnett. 248.
17. Dunnett. 249.
18. Dunnett. 249.
19. Dunnett. 249.
20. Giardina. 60.
21. Visser. “Fascist Doctrine and the Cult of the Romanita.” 16.
22. Dunnett. 247.
23. Giardina. 66.
24. Dunnett. 251.
25. Giardina. 68.
26. Giardina. 68.

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Bibliography

Giardina, Andrea. “The Fascist Myth of Romanity.” Estudos Avançados, vol. 22, no. 62, 2008, pp. 55–76.

Oxford Dictionaries. “Romanità.” en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/romanita.

Painter, Borden W. Mussolini's Rome: Rebuilding the Eternal City. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Visser, Romke. “Fascist Doctrine and the Cult of the Romanita.” Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 27, no. 1,
Jan., 1992, pp. 5-22.

World History. “Mussolini on Horseback.” www.worldhistory.biz/ancient-history/55032-the-fall-of-the-

Dunnett, Jane. “The Rhetoric of Romanità: Representations of Caesar in Fascist Theatre”. Julius Caesar in Western
Culture. Ed. Maria Wyke. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. 244-265.

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