Would Mussolini have been interested in archaeology? (Archaeology, Oxford)

Of course, few national leaders, if any, have ever taken such a public interest in archaeology as Benito Mussolini. Only Hitler and Stalin (tellingly) have shown quite the same archaeological zeal in the last century as ‘Il Duce’. Mussolini ordered the excavation of many Roman ruins such as the Forum and the Colosseum, and it was he who authorised the massive project to entirely drain Lake Nemi and recover the two sunken Roman ships that had lain on its bed since the time of Caligula. But he didn’t just authorise projects like these, he actively drove them forward, and frequently visited the sites to see what the diggers had unearthed.

Indeed, Mussolini made the most of any connection with Ancient Rome that he could. The symbol and very name of the Fascists came from the Ancient Roman fasces, bundles of birch rods used as an emblem of authority. And Mussolini liked to think of himself as a second Augustus.

One imagines the questioner would know all this, and know that it is one of the better-known facts about Mussolini – since as much as he was hailed for it in Italy, he was mocked abroad even at the time for his ostentatious concern for Ancient Rome. So the question must be hinting that there are doubts about the authenticity or sincerity of Mussolini’s fascination for archaeology.

Of course, one cannot know Mussolini’s mind, so the evidence must be purely circumstantial. And of course, I know I’m never going to be anything less than prejudiced when a leader as unsavoury as Mussolini is concerned. This is a man whose police indulged in torture and kidnapped children. A man who had many of his opponents put to death. A man who outlawed Jews. A man who ordered mass killings in Libya and Ethiopia. This is the brutal dictator of whom they said, condemning by their very omission, ‘At least he made the trains run on time’.

It is hard to believe that anyone who was able to justify his crimes as a means to an end could ever have any genuine interest in anything that did not help his political agenda. One must believe that everything he did had an ulterior motive. And it seems highly likely that this was as true of his interest in archaeology as anything else.

It is surely no accident that Hitler and Mussolini, along with Albania’s Enver Hoxha – brutal dictators all – seem to have had the same interest in archaeology. And the fact that it’s a common interest is a strong sign that it’s part of a pattern, rather than a personal interest. And, of course, it is.

Leaders have always been interested in the past, because it justifies their present and their future. If the past got you where you were, remind people of it. Ancestry gives rights of ownership, and always has done. But history became especially important in the 19th and 20th centuries as nation states began to define themselves and sought to firm up their identities. The German poet and thinker Johann Herder talked about the Volkgeist, the national character that emerges from history and homeland. History was a way of showing who you were and how you were different from other nations. The stronger your past, the stronger your identity. Throughout the 19th century, nationalism grew hand in hand with an interest in the past. In Britain at its imperial height, there was a renewed fascination in the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. The Scots were drawn in by tales of Rob Roy.

But under Hitler and Mussolini, this fascination with the past took a much more extreme and nasty turn. Hitler glorified the ancient past when Germany was pure and heroic and unsullied by other races. ‘All great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning,’ he wrote. Mussolini’s views were probably not so different, but for him it was the Roman Empire that was the heroic past of Italy – ironically the very Roman Empire whose defeat by German tribes led by Arminius in AD9 at Teutoburg was seen by the Germans as the defining moment in their past.

For Mussolini, the Roman Empire was the very symbol of the heights Italian culture could achieve and would again under him. Its propaganda value was immense, and he seized every opportunity he could to associate himself with it. Years of Fascist rule began to be identified in Roman numerals. The effete bourgeois handshake was replaced by the firm Roman salute. And once the Forum and Colosseum were properly excavated, he had a new road built to link them with the Fascist centre on Rome’s Piazza Venezia. The drive behind this romanita (Roman-ness) was clearly not an interest in archaeology; it was image building. As Mussolini himself wrote at the time, ‘My objective is simple; I want to make Italy great, respected and feared; I want to render my nation worthy of her noble and ancient traditions.’ Roman heritage meant respect and fear for Italy, for the Fascists – nothing more.

There is no plainer evidence of Mussolini’s disdain for genuine archaeology than the way it was done. Certainly there was a lot done in his time, more than at any time in the recent past, and Rome owes tourist attractions like the Forum to his Roman drive. But the sheer volume was part of the problem. It was shoddy archaeology, hurried and careless stripping away of the past by untrained, cheap labour. Small artefacts, the layers of valuable minutiae that tell archaeologists so much – everything was shovelled brutally aside in a bid to get at the more showy, but not necessarily more informative objects.

Moreover, Mussolini’s real lack of interest for archaeology was borne out by his complete disregard for anything of Rome’s past (or even its living present) but relics of the Empire. Fascinating historic buildings from the medieval period and earlier, including homes and churches, were simply knocked away by his Empire-diggers, and the tenants who lived there shipped to Rome’s outskirts, to get at the Roman treasure beneath.

In short, although we can never be absolutely certain, Mussolini’s actions suggest he was only interested in archaeology as far as it boosted his image of himself, of the Fascists or of his version of Italy. Yes, he got archaeology done, but he wasn’t interested in it – and at what price? The past was for Mussolini a place to plunder, not to explore.