"Primeval forest creatures, the Romans". [Nietzsche WM 959]

Nietzsche's enthusiasm for Imperial Rome never waned; indeed it increased towards the end of his career. He admired its ability to organise and build, and came, accordingly, to see architecture as the highest expression of the Grand Style in Art. This political/cultural admiration for Rome was shared, and expressed in similar language by those post-Nietzschean movements for European renaissance in the first half of the 20th century.

1) "The Italic stock, to which belong all the dominant peoples of central Italy, including the Romans themselves, entered the peninsula from the North, like the Gauls and the Lombards after them, as a superior race with a strongly marked personality and clear ideals of life and conduct; their languages belong to the Aryan group, and are related both to Greek, and Celtic".[Myres 'A History of Rome']

2) "The Italian people's musical sense, its liking for harmonious proportions, the beauty of its race! ".[A.Hitler 'Table Talk']

3) In Ancient Rome,"political rights were strictly limited to members of a small number of 'gentes' or clans, each itself consisting of a number of 'familiae' or households, whose members all bore the same clan-name or 'nomen', and were believed to be of common descent on the father's side. In each household, the father of the family had absolute power over wife and children, as well as dependents and slaves". [Myres ib.]

4) "For institutions to be possible there must exist a sort of Will, Instinct, Imperative, which cannot be otherwise than anti-liberal to the point of wickedness: the Will to tradition, to authority, to responsibility for Centuries to come, to SOLIDARITY in long family lines forward and backward 'in infinitum'.If this Will is present, something is founded which resembles the 'imperium Romanum' ". [Nietzsche 'Twilight' IX 39]

5) "Some of these clans, which claimed to be original members of the state, were called 'patriciae gentes', and their members had originally a monopoly of all political privileges, and of such social privileges as the right to hold land.Other clans, not in the strictest sense 'gentes' at all, were held to be of base or even alien origin. These less privileged clans were called 'plebia genera', and their members collectively the 'Plebs', a word like the Greek 'plethos', meaning 'multitude'. They had, to begin with, no political rights at all, nor even the privilege of intermarriage with members of the patrician 'gentes' ".[Myres ib.]

6) "The Roman Empire is a great political creation, the greatest of all".[Hitler ib.]

7) "The 'imperium Romanum', the most magnificent form of organisation, under difficult conditions, that has ever been achieved, and compared with which everything that preceded, and everything which followed it, is mere patchwork, gimcrackery, and dilettantism".[Nietzsche 'The Antichristian' 58]

8) "Now (509 B.C.) the Romans chose two men in the Assembly of the Centuries and gave them both the emblems of a king, an equal power for one year: And these were called Praetores, or Leaders; but afterwards Consules, because they acted jointly.And they gave to each, six men, called Lictores, to do their bidding and to bear before them rods to chastise, and an axe to slay, in token of their authority".[Myres 'A History of Rome']

9) "The articulation of modern politics in terms of Classical models has generated for example, the Fascism of Mussolini's Italy, where a new Augustan restoration was proclaimed". [Beard,Henderson 'Classics']

10) "The Romans made Aulus Postumius their Dictator, to have sole command, instead of the two Consuls, because the danger was great; and they gave him the twelve Lictors, who bore their axes even within the city, because from the word of the Dictator there is no appeal".[Myres ib.]

11) "The Fascist movement is a spontaneous return to the traditions of ancient Rome".[A.Hitler 'Table Talk']

12) "The Consuls were precede in procession by twelve Lictors, carrying the Fasces, or bundle of sticks in the middle of which appeared an axe".[Myres ib.]

13) "The great YEA to all things materialised in the 'imperium Romanum', become visible to all the senses, Grand Style no longer manifested in mere art, but in reality, in truth, in LIFE".[Nietzsche 'The Antichristian' 59]

14) "The Dictator was chosen only when the state was in imminent danger from foreign enemies and inward seditions.As soon as elected, the Dictator chose a subordinate officer, called his master of horse, 'magister equitum'. This officer was respected, but he was totally subservient to the will of the Dictator ".[Myres ib.]

15) "The Roman Empire never had its like. To have succeeded in completely ruling the world! And no empire has spread its civilisation as Rome did".[Hitler ib.]

16) "The symbol of this struggle is called 'Rome against Judaea, Judaea against Rome' ".[Nietzsche Genealogy of Morals I,16]

17) "The Romans employed two words to designate divine presences or powers, namely,i) 'deus' [from the root DIV-, 'shine', is related to the Sanskrit 'deva', 'god'] which suggests a being with a defined personality, and,ii) 'numen' [from the root NV-, which means 'nod', whence the connotation 'command' or 'will', and then, 'divine will or power', 'divine sway'], which suggests, rather, the impulse of a Will or force of no personal definition".[J.Campbell 'Masks of God']Nietzsche's own philosophy of 'Will to Power' is related to this 'numen'.

18) "The religious ideas of the Romans are common to all Aryan peoples".[A.Hitler 'Table Talk']

19) "There was the idea also of a 'numen' of the procreating power of each male, his 'genius', and of the conceiving and bearing power of the female, her 'juno'.'Genius' and 'juno' came into being and expired with the individual. They stood beside him in life as protecting spirits and could be represented as serpents".[Campbell ib.]One thinks here of Zarathustra's animals, the Eagle and the Serpent;"In public assemblies the Consuls sat in ivory chairs and held in their hands an ivory wand, called 'scipio eburneus', which had an eagle on its top as a sign of dignity and power".[Lempriere 'Classical dictionary']

20) "During his lifetime, Augustus had not permitted his person to be directly worshipped in Rome - offerings had been addressed only to his GENIUS ".[Campbell ib.]

21) "In his monumental 'Aeneid', Virgil brings together Hercules, Aeneas, and Augustus, and creates the classic meditation on political power and leadership at Rome".[Beard, Henderson 'Classics']

22) "Roman pagan piety: i) The veneration of the Emperor which the patron of Virgil, Augustus, caused to be instituted as a policy of the state. ii) Cicero's two declarations that the way to heaven is through service to one's Fatherland, and that each is to know himself as a god".[Campbell ib.]

23) "Romulus is supposed to have laid the foundations of that celebrated city, in April 20th, according to Varro, in the year 753 B.C. ".[Lempriere ib.]Hitler's birthday was April 20th; here the Fuhrer talks of the Emperor Julian who tried to bring paganism back to the Empire;"The book that contains the reflections of the Emperor Julian should be circulated in millions. What wonderful intelligence, what discernment, all the wisdom of antiquity! It's extraordinary".[Hitler ib.]

24) "The Romans, we know, were the strong and the noble, so that stronger and nobler men had never existed on earth before, nay, had not even been dreamt of. Every relic of them, every inscription delights, granted that one feels WHAT is writing therein.The Jews, on the contrary, were that priestly people of ressentiment par excellence, which was possessed of an unparalleled, popular ingenuity of morals".[Nietzsche GM I,16]