The History Of The Roman Salute Explained

Unless you're ostriching your way to better mental health with your head in the ground (a myth — ostriches don't do that), you might have noticed the richest man alive striking his chest and, as many claimed, sieg heiling his way to a brighter future at President Donald Trump's inauguration. In a case of perfectly mulched fodder for the infinite online rage-and-prattle machine, there's already been about 20 quadrillion click-ready articles/posts written about the topic. From Vanity Fair's purse-lipped snark to the Anti-Defamation League's conciliatory "this is a delicate moment" tweet on X, plenty has been said on the incident.

Before you start shoring up the home defenses against legions of Musks' goose-stepping humanoid robots, it's time to pause, breathe, think, and cease those tappy, spluttering online fingers. And we say "legions" intentionally, because it's Roman imperial legionaries who first delivered straight-armed salutes to their superior officers back in the day. Or so we think — we don't know with 100% certainty what their "Roman Salute," as it's been dubbed, looked like. But as Imperium Romanum quotes the 1st-century Roman historian Flavius, "Each morning the legionaries go to their centurion and salute him. The centurions then go to the tribunes and salute them. All the tribunes then go to salute the general."

Come 1919, Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini adopted this "saluto romano" to evoke the grandeur of the Italian peninsula's past. Adolf Hitler, a great admirer of Mussolini, copied the gesture and rebranded it as the "Hitler salute." And so the Roman salute was sullied, no matter if that's what Musk or anyone else intends.

At the height of its empire around 100 C.E., Rome stretched from Britain to Egypt, an outrageously large chunk of land. While a lot of factors contributed to Rome's rise and expansion, one reason stands above the rest: its military. Simply put, Rome's military was the best-trained, best-equipped, most disciplined fighting force in the world. It was a fine-tuned machine and marching juggernaut rather than a shambling, howling horde, right down the entire force's organizational chart, who's equipped with what, and who's responsible for what, even record-keepers and musicians. It's reasonable to assume that such a military had designated ways of greeting and addressing each other, like saluting.

The only thing is, we don't know exactly what the "Roman salute" — assuming it was standardized — really looked like. We've got descriptions of Romans generally raising hands to greet each other, but raising hands to say "hello" isn't exactly what you'd call uncommon cross-culturally. The Roman orator Cicero also described Octavian (later Augustus) swearing loyalty to the emperor, Julius Caesar, using an outstretched right arm. And we do know that the right arm in Rome was associated with the sun god, Sol Invictus, and served to demonstrate trust. 

But even considering Flavius' aforementioned description of Roman soldiers saluting each other, there's no precise description of it. Artwork shows soldiers raising their arms in greeting, but just that. Regardless, that didn't stop 20th-century Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from taking the Roman salute and making it his own. 

As mentioned, we have Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to thank for reprising the Roman salute. Sure, plenty of people across the 1,800 years separating the height of the Roman Empire and his adoption of the gesture might have used it similarly. But it wasn't recorded. 

When Mussolini rose to power after the end of World War I, he did so through Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, a nationalist political organization that he formed in 1919. Commonly called "Blackshirts" for their black attire, they resorted to physical violence and intimidation to gain support. By 1921, they had risen from 30,000 to 320,000 members, and that same year, Mussolini renamed the group the Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF), or National Fascist Party.

As Project Muse explains, the PNF wanted to differentiate their in-group codes from the "degenerate, effeminate (and germ ridden) bourgeois handshake" that had spread across Europe. They wanted something tough, manly, and stiff-lipped. For this, they turned to their own past and that most enduring of "virile" references to which they had a direct, geographical connection: the Roman Empire. Hence the Roman salute.

By then, Mussolini had already adopted another artifact of ancient Roman symbology: The fascis, a bundle of sticks with an ax-like blade at the top meant to represent strength in unity. The Romans borrowed the symbol from their once-conquerors, the Etruscans, who used it as early as 7th-century B.C.E.. This is where words like "fascism" come from. But because the specifics of the Roman salute were vague, Mussolini just made the gesture his own.

Adolf Hitler was something of a fanboy when it came to Benito Mussolini. He admired Mussolini's tough-guy image, and was especially fascinated by the Italian dictator's grab for national power in 1922, when the leader and his Blackshirts marched on Rome. In response to this move, Italian King Victor Emmanuel said that he could remake the Italian government into whatever he wanted. 

Hitler was chairperson of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (Nazi Party) at the time, also known as the German Workers' Party. He even wrote to Musslini in 1923, and Mussolini wound up giving him financial backing. At the same time, Mussolini considered Hitler a boring, boorish fool whose "Aryan" lineage couldn't possibly match the glory of ancient Rome.

Even so, Hitler adopted the Roman salute as his own. He further rebranded it the "Hitler salute," more accurately "der deutsche Gruß," which translates to "the German salute." By the time the short-lived, post-World War I German Weimar Republic died in 1933, the salute had "become the German greeting," as the Nazi's minister of interior, Wilhelm Frick, wrote in an inter-ministerial memorandum (per "Tales of Hi and Bye"). Hitler saluted his officers, his officers saluted him, and everyone else in society followed suit. Kids as young as 5 received proper indoctrination about how to make the gesture. "All who wish to avoid the suspicion of consciously obstructionist behaviour will use the Hitler Salute," the National Socialist German Students' League said. There was some variation in arm height between Hitler's and Mussolini's versions, but the salutes were basically the same.

After Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, neo-Nazi groups adopted the Roman salute as their own. Such groups exist around the globe in North America, the U.K., Australia, across Europe, and elsewhere. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has a list of such officially recognized groups in the United States, complete with map and broken down into numerous adjacent categories like "Racist Skinhead," "Antisemitism," and "Anti LGBTQ." That being said, it's impossible to get perfect information on such groups — they undoubtedly rise and fall over time along with their membership. But suffice it to say: The whole Roman salute thing — or Hitler salute, to them — is pretty universal, no matter how bent-at-the-elbow certain arms get. 

This brings us back to Elon Musk, the trigger for the 2025 round of discussion surrounding the Roman salute. Outlets across the world have chimed in and offered opinions on the matter, including in places like France, India, Germany, South Africa (his home country), and more. There's also been responses from groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a pro-Israel NGO. They approached things sensibly on X, saying, "It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute." Predictably, this lack of a volcanic condemnation drew further ire from various sources. Whether or not the current kerfuffle leaves any meaningful impact on the Roman salute's history, though, is anyone's guess.