Antique American flags, obscure foreign ones, ... The fasces, as it is known, was a popular Roman symbol indicating a leader’s power, authority, and ability to punish his subordinates.

So when fasces started popping up on major federal buildings in Washington, D.C., in the 1920s and 1930s, no politically aware citizen could have been ignorant of the connotation. American architects ...

If the American flavor of fasces was ahistoric, so was Mussolini’s, Brennan said. “His idea was imposing unity by means of authority,” Brennan said.

The use of fasces by alt-right groups is another attempt to commandeer the insignia of ancient Rome to connect their movements to the bygone power and legitimacy of the Roman empire.