Watching Rome here and wondering, what’s with the poles the guards are carrying...

Watching Rome here and wondering, what’s with the poles the guards are carrying? At first I thought it was just a box on the pole, and I was amused by how much it looked like a magazine, and their grip on the bottom being essentially the same as in modern close order drill.
However, upon closer inspection, they appear to perhaps be a hatchet strapped to the longer pole?
So, anyone know what’s the dealo?

Attached: DAA6AE83-479B-46CE-86E8-8F03F0AD0731.jpg (506x316, 62K)

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youtube.com/watch?v=s9qlNBBoFG4
youtu.be/F-VjCLR5L-c
youtu.be/s9qlNBBoFG4
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces
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Lictors

>Another part of the symbolism developed in Republican Rome was the inclusion of just a single-headed axe in the fasces, with the blade projecting from the bundle. The axe indicated that the magistrate's judicial powers (imperium) included capital punishment. Fasces carried within the Pomerium—the boundary of the sacred inner city of Rome—had their axe blades removed; within the city, the power of life and death rested with the people through their assemblies. During times of emergency, however, the Roman Republic might choose a dictator to lead for a limited time period, who was the only magistrate to be granted capital punishment authority within the Pomerium. Lictors attending the dictator kept the axes in their fasces even inside the Pomerium—a sign that the dictator had the ultimate power in his own hands.
It meant even more than I thought it did. Damn this show is good.

Also thank for for enabling me to learn on my own.
That may be the gayest thing ive ever said, and I once yelled, “put that fucking cock in my mouth”

Fasces, a symbol of republicanism and the power of office in ancient Rome. You see it in pre-WW2 American and French iconography, its where Fascism derives its name, and because of WW2 it started to fall out of use but you see it all the time still on government buildings and state/city symbols.

>a bound bundle of wooden rods, sometimes including an axe with its blade emerging. The fasces had its origin in the Etruscan civilization and was passed on to ancient Rome, where it symbolized a magistrate's power and jurisdiction. The axe originally associated with the symbol, the Labrys the double-bitted axe, originally from Crete, is one of the oldest symbols of Greek civilization. To the Romans, it was known as a bipennis.

>The symbolism of the fasces could suggest strength through unity (see Unity makes strength); a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is very difficult to break.
>Another part of the symbolism developed in Republican Rome was the inclusion of just a single-headed axe in the fasces, with the blade projecting from the bundle. The axe indicated that the magistrate's judicial powers (imperium) included capital punishment

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They could hardly forget about the fucking fasces user. That's gladius tier famous.
Like the eagle, it's embedded in thousands of statal symbols from later eras, most famously Fascist Italy and all iterations of republican France.

Thank YOU for not asking to be blatantly spoonfed user.

Attached: thank you.jpg (800x450, 61K)

>Bipennis

they're carrying fasces
does the term 'fascism' ring a bell user?

A handful of anons on a Friday night just gave me a better history class than I was ever given in school.