it started during the 18th century in France with The Oath of the Horatii. It is pseudohistorically associated with ancient Rome afterwards.
Ancient Romans did not use that salute.
If I didn’t want people to think that I was suggesting that something began in ancient Rome I would rewrite the first sentence of the article: “It began in ancient Rome.”
And probably this bit, two sentences later: “Its origins go back much further, as it was based on the Roman salute”
"It began in ancient Rome."
It's not there as a quote, it's not there as "it was claimed to begin in ancient Rome". It's just the simple assertion: "It began in ancient Rome."
If you didn't really mean to assert that statement or suggest that it's true, then, frankly, you've written that pretty poorly.
Mussolini would draw on the greatness if Rome even in architecture and mix it with modern to look towards the future. The lasting empire. Hitler had no such powerful local symbolism so also drew a lot from Rome for his “1000 year Reich”. And what wasn’t really Roman was just called Roman to make it easy.
> Although it originated during the 18th century in France, it is pseudohistorically associated with ancient Rome.
> According to an apocryphal legend, the fascist gesture was based on a customary greeting which was claimed to have been used in ancient Rome. However, no Roman text describes such a gesture, and the Roman works of art that display salutational gestures bear little resemblance to the modern "Roman" salute. The salute had in fact originated more than a millennium later, in Jacques-Louis David's painting The Oath of the Horatii (1784)