[barrow-rider]

For the uninitiated: Italian Fascism was so named as a reference to classical Roman Fasces, which was a bundle of sticks or rods wrapped around an axe that symbolized authority.

[jlawson]

It symbolized solidarity, not so much authority. The small sticks work together and act as one.

[int_19h]

Fasces very much symbolized authority initially. It is no coincidence that the rods in fasces were birch. And, of course, there's that ax in the middle...