Fasces

The word fascism comes from fascio, the Italian word for bundle, which in this case represents bundles of people united around a common ideal. Its origins go back to Ancient Rome, where it symbolized a magistrate's power and jurisdiction. The fasces was a bundle of wood with an ax head, carried by magistrate attendants called lictors.

Lictors carried the fasces for their magistrate and were constantly in his attendance in public; clearing his way in crowds and summoned and punished offenders for him. They also served as their magistrate’s house guard. The fasces in this sense was also utilized as a portable kit for corporal or capital punishment. Lictors had the duty to arrest and punish people, and acted as guards for the magistrates; so one may roll out the fasces to use the rods to cane criminals, or if necessary, the ax.

“The Fascist State is an inwardly accepted standard and rule of conduct, a discipline of the whole person; it permeates the will no less than the intellect. It stands for a principle which becomes the central motive of man as a member of civilized society, sinking deep down into his personality; it dwells in the heart of the man of action and of the thinker, of the artist and of the man of science: soul of the soul.

Fascism, in short, is not only a law-giver and a founder of institutions, but an educator and a promoter of spiritual life. It aims at refashioning not only the forms of life but their content - man, his character, and his faith. To achieve this propose it enforces discipline and uses authority, entering into the soul and ruling with undisputed sway. Therefore it has chosen as its emblem the Lictor’s rods, the symbol of unity, strength, and justice. “

- Giovanni Gentile, The Doctrine of Fascism

Fasces (English: /ˈfæsiːz/ FASS-eez; Latin: [ˈfaskeːs]; a plurale tantum, from the Latin word fascis, meaning "bundle"; Italian: fascio littorio) is a bound bundle of wooden rods, sometimes including an axe (occasionally two axes) with its blade emerging. -Wikipedia

The principle represented by the Fasces is Strength through Unity, the right of the state to discipline.