Origins of the \'Hollywood\' Roman salute?

[tlclark]

what we see on Trajan's Column and elsewhere, then, could be the visual record of a dialogue, of sorts, between leader and led - if these scenes tell a story in pictures, the hand gestures could act as subtitles!

Oh absolutely. The art history term for this is semiotics. Richard Brilliant's book "Gesture and rank in the Roman World" is the first and best on this, although he says nothing about salutes unfortunately. Military history wasn't his focus. My guess is that early Christians must not have any problem with putting Christ in an "aristocratic" mode if they adopted the gesture for his images.

PS - was the 'three raised fingers' Christian benediction the reason why the Capitoline statue of Marcus Aurelius was presumed to be Constantine, and therefore spared destruction in the Christian era?

Gosh I dunno! It's possible that they interpreted it that way but nobody says anything about it. Quite frankly, the origins of that association have always mystified me. It's not like there weren't lots of images of Constatnine available. I suspect the story is partially apocryphal. Art has a lot of 'presence' and commands a lot of attention as a symbol of legitimacy and wealth. You have to remember that this was installed at the Lateran Palace for most of its history. That suggests that the Popes had an interest in it's preservation. My own take on it is that some Pope just liked it and called it Constantine to keep it kosher.

Travis