What is a Fasces? Sticks or Ancient Electromagnetic Technology?

fas·ces
noun - HISTORICAL
"a bundle of rods with a projecting axe blade, carried by a lictor in ancient Rome as a symbol of a magistrate's power, and used as an emblem of authority in Fascist Italy and the entirety of American history."
All roads lead to Rome.
On the surface, a bundle of sticks isn't very practical on the battle field. A fasces was carried into war and displayed as a symbol of power and authority. Who cares about their enemy's self-proclaimed level of authority in battle and especially when they show up just holding a bundle of sticks? Seems pretty silly for officers to endanger and present themselves as a harmless target carrying nothing more than a bouquet of rods, no? That isn't threatening at all..
An unused weapon is a useless weapon.
There's another word for 'a bundle of sticks.' I'm not sure that it's either a Roman or Latin word but its usage would make sense considering the culture of Roman man/boy love in those times and doing silly things like carrying sticks to war and parading their aUtHoRiTy.. No wonder their empire fell, right?
Or what if there's something more to it? Something they aren't telling us??
The man in the video is showing off what's basically a gauss rifle or coilgun in 1950 something. The device employs electrified coils to produce a magnetic field that propels ferromagnetic projectiles at high speeds and can be used as a catapult.
Mercury is among the very first metals to be discovered (1500bc) and is easily extracted from Cinnabar ore. Greeks were studying static electricity with materials like amber, glass, metals, and magnets 2,500 years ago.. How unfortunate that such geniuses of their time, and no one else for that matter, never could conceptualize any application or practical use of the phenomenon for another 2,300 years or until 1879 when they tell us the lightbulb was invented or 1895 when the first power tool was invented..
Imagine where we would be today if the technology boom experienced in the late 1800's, and brought on by a group of people with 900 years of missing history and achievements, began 2000 years ago. Imagine if it did and all technology has been rediscovered, reverse engineered, and suppressed by some ancient evil cult of elites hellbent on world domination...
Some things just aren't adding up. If you know you know.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

Seems plausible, a lot of technology was lost when the Roman empire collapsed.
I was told the fasces contained the Who-is-who, which mever made much sense to me. If you need six slaves to carry a list of names, wouldn't it take forever to unroll the scrolls? And how would you know what to look up anyway?
Those slaves being bodyguards carrying railguns makes more sense, practically, but there is no mention of that anywhere.

[@TOBAPNW_]

Schizo description

[@dumbage]

? not even close to the most outlandish thing i’ve heard

[@dumbage]

i love this video, the roman’s were so so smart i don’t doubt they knew fasces would shoot