Jacques-Louis David’s painting The Oath of the Horatii (1784) depicts a scene of his own invention in which, before the fateful battle in which two of them will perish, the three brothers Horatii swear an oath to their father that they will kill all the Curiatii or die themselves fighting on behalf of the Roman state. The painting shows the brothers raising their hands in a straight-arm salute, with their palms facing the ground and their fingers pointing out.