Comment by WarCommons

You can call me Nick! And that's also part of the article. Maybe my wording was a little bit unfortunate, but I never stated this was actually used in ancient Rome. It's traceable through the painting you're referring to and also part of the article. The argument is moreso that it could very well be that Mussolini got the inspiration for that kind of a salute from the painting and the link with ancient Rome it suggests.