The body is rigid, the back straight, as the person stands tall; the arm is extended and unbent, raised above the shoulder line, with a tense hand and the palm faced downwards. It is a gesture that will be forever remembered with ignonimity and horror. A salute that stands for a type of hatred that can penetrate the soul of mankind, a hatred the likes of which we always hope never to see again.

The gesture is strongly associated with Italian Fascism and Nazi Germany; however, dubbed the Roman Salute, is there any evidence to the claim that it is based on an old Roman military custom?

Roman Military Salute

There is no clear evidence for any formal miliary salute being used in the Roman military, let alone one that resembles that described above.

Having said that, our written sources do make mention of a greeting given to higher levels of command by their men, but the idea of a modern style salute is misleading. Modern translations will often use the word salute but this is an anachronism (eg. Tacitus, Histories 2.80):

One day, on Vespasian quitting his chamber, a few soldiers who stood near, in the usual form in which they would salute their legate, suddenly saluted him as Emperor

Salute here means to greet or ‘hail’ one’s superior. There is no suggestion of any prescribed body movement or hand gesture to go with it, although we do know that military etiquette also required subordinates to stand in the presence of their officers.

There is one vague allusion in the work of Josephus (Wars of the Jews 3.92) to soldiers raising their right hands in agreement with something their commander has said, but it is notably bereft of any detail:

Then does the crier stand at the general’s right hand, and asks them thrice, in their own tongue, whether they be now ready to go out to war or not. To which they reply as often, with a loud and cheerful voice, saying, “We are ready.” And this they do almost before the question is asked them: they do this as filled with a kind of martial fury, and at the same time that they so cry out, they lift up their right hands also

The image of a raised hand in greeting, similar to a modern wave of the hand, is present in the artistic evidence from Rome. There are various surviving statues which are shown making such a gesture, but they are usually shown with a bent arm and a raised palm, nothing like the straight-armed fascist salute of the 20th century (Winkler, 2009). A salute is also absent from any evidence where we might expect to see it, such as Trajan’s Column which depicts a wide array of gestures and actions from military service, including a raised hand gesture (eg. scene 85), but there is no discernible salute anywhere.

Origins of the Roman Salute

The imagery of the salute can be traced, not to the ancient world, but to the late 18th century France. French revolutionaries created the salute as part of their political framing to revive or resurrect the Roman Republic (Agbamu 2025). The now iconic gesture is best captured in the work of the painter Jacques-Louis David and his 1784 painting ‘The Oath of the Horatii’.

Depicting a scene from Roman legend, the three brothers of the Roman Horatii family agree to a duel against three brothers from a family in Alba Longa and bring an end to their war without mass bloodshed. Jacques-Louis David captures the emotionally intense moment when the brothers pledge to their father their willingness to fulfil their duty. Here in the neo-classical work of Jacques-Louis David we can clearly see the straight armed salute that we are more accustomed to.

Importantly, the ancient stories (Livy, History of Rome 1.24-26; Dionysius, Roman Antiquities 3.13-21) we have about this war and the Horatii brothers do not include a scene like this. Dionysius describes a scene between the father and his three sons, but the interaction between the men is quite different (3.17.5-6):

Their father, upon learning their disposition, rejoiced exceedingly, and lifting his hands to Heaven, said he rendered thanks to the gods for having given him noble sons. Then, throwing his arms about each in turn and giving the tenderest of embraces and kisses, he said: “You have my opinion also, my brave sons. Go, then, to Tullius and give him the answer that is both dutiful and honourable.” The youths went away pleased with the exhortation of their father, and going to the king, they accepted the combat.

We know that two of the brothers die in the story, while the third (Publius) feigns a cowardly retreat only to pick off his adversaries one by one. On his return, Publius sees his sister Camilla crying (notice her in the bottom right of the painting). Camilla was not only sad to know that her brothers had died, but she was betrothed to one of the enemy brothers as well. Publius then kills her for mourning the enemy dead.

‘The Oath of the Horatii’ is not the only painting of his which depicts the salute; but wherever painters like Jacques-Louis David took inspiration for this gesture it was not from any known ancient source depicting or describing a salute.

Conclusion

The later history and evolution of this form of salute is more well known via its use in Fascist Italy and then Nazi Germany, as well as its appearance in the United States of America through the Bellamy salute once used while performing the Pledge of Allegiance. But contrary to the modern tradition that connects this salute to one used in ancient Rome, there is no evidence for this at all.

It is for these reasons we have rated this claim false.