Augusto y Mussolini: la presencia de la antigua Roma en la Roma fascista*

Abstract

Ancient Rome, that served during the Risorgimento to cement a precarious national unity, played several roles under the Fascist regime. At first, it was the symbol of the Fascist Revolution, Caesar being the key figure. Later, along the years of consensus, Augustus, the appeaser, was privileged. To that period belongs the identification between August, the founder of the ancient empire, with Mussolini, the founder of the new empire. Finally, in the late 1930s, the celebration of the new empire put off the old one. This article reviews the traces of those three periods in present Rome.