whether to salute the Flag while in formation for the enlisted and the officers. The laws themselves do not specify punishment for not respecting or saluting the flag, only for using illegal flags. There was a case where a man was fined 400 baht for not stopping his vehicle for the National Anthem, but a lawyer explained (publicly) that the traffic ticket itself is illegal because stopping the vehicle for the National Anthem is not legally required, and the name and affiliation (precinct name) of the citing officer were also omitted, further invalidating the ticket. In addition to the National Anthem, the Royal Anthem Sansoen Phra Barami is also given a similar respect. The laws regarding lèse majesté in Thailand do not contain punishment for merely ignoring (not standing up or silently ignoring it) the Royal Anthem since it is not a direct threat against the royalty. However, it is a serious criminal offense to make offensive gestures. Roman salute The Roman salute is a gesture in which the arm is held out forward straight, with palm down and fingers extended straight and touching. Sometimes the arm is raised upward at an angle, sometimes it is held out parallel to the ground. A well known symbol of Fascism, it is commonly perceived to be based on a classical Roman custom.p. 2 but no known Roman work of art displays this salute, and no known Roman text describes it. Beginning with Jacques-Louis David's painting The Oath of the Horatii (1784), an association of the gesture with Roman republican and imperial culture emerged through 18th-century French art. The association with ancient Roman traditions was further developed in France during the Napoleonic era and again in popular culture through late 19th- and early 20th-century plays and films. These include the epic Cabiria (1914), whose screenplay was attributed to Italian nationalist Gabriele d'Annunzio. In a case of life imitating art, d'Annunzio appropriated the salute as a neo-imperial ritual when he led the occupation of Fiume in 1919. It was soon adopted by the Italian Fascist party, whose use of the salute inspired the Nazi party salute. However, the armed forces (Wehrmacht) of the Third Reich used a German form of the military salute until, in the wake of the July 20 plot on Hitler's life in 1944, the Nazi salute or Hitlergruss was imposed on them. The Bellamy salute was a similar gesture and