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Quote:[quote="Currahee Chris" post=320347]Anyone imagine the significance of some archaeologist digging one up??? What a find that would be!!
I think if an eagle were still existing, Professor Indiana Jones would have found it. :wink:
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Quote:They only took a 14 year break.
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@Pavel: :lol: :lol:
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Quote:One legion, one eagle, in Early Empire we have around 46 legions, it means 46 eagles.
Now think in helmets, there should be hundreds of thousands, how many helmets have been found?
Discover an eagle would be rare, but extremely amazing!
Rare but not as rare as finding Maxentius' Imperial regalia a few years back so I'll keep hope. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/scie...htm?csp=34
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Yeah,I know about this.Only it is really so sure it was part of Emperors regalia?Im certain that Ive met even different opinions on it.But there are almost always some doubts.
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Nice thread - thanks.
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Some mention of "aqua regia" ('Royal Water') here, above. This is a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acids in a 1:3 ratio. It is so-called because it will dissolve the 'precious' or 'coinage' metals. I don't think that the Romans knew of either of these acids.
Do we, in fact, know whether the eagles were made of gold? I can concede that they might have been but an eagle made of gold would have been very heavy to have to lug around. A bronze eagle that was gold plated would have been much lighter. What it was made of would, perhaps, have been a moot point. It was a symbol of the legion that had religious connotations for the Roman soldier. There would have been very few of them anyway. Someone above made the point that comparatively few helmets are known from the period but there must have been hundreds of thousands of the things (possibly even millions over a 200 year span of time). I know of around 800 helmets; a tiny fraction of the number which must have been made.
Consider: how many "eagles" from the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars are known? There are just two in Britain (one in the National Army Museum and the other in the Royal United Services museum in Edinburgh). I dare say that there are a few others around Europe. There would have been hundreds of these (assuming one for each regiment). This is only a couple of centuries back. What chance would there be of finding a Roman eagle from 2,000 years ago?
Caratacus
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(05-02-2017, 11:18 PM)Caratacus Wrote: Consider: how many "eagles" from the period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars are known? There are just two in Britain (one in the National Army Museum and the other in the Royal United Services museum in Edinburgh). I dare say that there are a few others around Europe. There would have been hundreds of these (assuming one for each regiment). This is only a couple of centuries back. What chance would there be of finding a Roman eagle from 2,000 years ago?
Caratacus
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The Roman inspired 4lb bronze eagles were Napoleonic, not Revolutionary French and introduced in 1804 at one per infantry battalion and one per cavalry squadron. Due to losses and costs of replacement, this was eventually reduced to one per regiment, but battalion commanders tended ignore the change in regulation. Louis XVIII had the eagles destroyed, though some were hidden, and a returning Napoleon issued lower quality replacements - I think aforementioned two are from Waterloo.
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Yes, that for the 105th line is in the NAM at Chelsea and the 45th Line is in RUSI in Edinburgh. Both were taken, of course, at Waterloo, as you said.
However, I think your comment proves my point. Most of these eagles would have been destroyed by the returning Bourbons, leaving very few for us to find. I do know of a private collection at Fontainbleau that includes at least one eagle - but this dates from the 2nd Empire period, not that of The Little Corsican. What has always surprised me is not so much the absence of an eagle from the archaeological record, but the presence of at least 800 helmets!
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There is, of course, the famous Silchester Eagle that inspired Rosemary Sutcliffe's 'Eagle of the Ninth':
Unfortunarely, this is unlikely to be a legionary eagle. Modern scholarship considers it to be part of a statue, perhaps of Jupiter or an emperor. When I was at the museum many years ago, the caretaker there called it 'the chicken'!
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IIRC, a Silver Eagle that may have been used as a Standard was found in a fortress in Serbia or Bulgaria dating to the 4th century AD.
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(05-03-2017, 11:27 PM)Flavivs Aetivs Wrote: IIRC, a Silver Eagle that may have been used as a Standard was found in a fortress in Serbia or Bulgaria dating to the 4th century AD.
Any Pics? could it have been Gilded?
Just a point on Gold Eagles, most people seem to assume that such pieces would be solid metal and therfore obviously very heavy, its more likely that such a piece would be sheet gold or a hollow casting etc and may have a supporting filling or backing of some kind....
Ivor
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(09-11-2012, 12:28 AM)Gaius Colletti Wrote: How many Eagles were actually created anyways? No surprise we can't find one really
How many eagles were created actually? I mean its hard to find an accurate amount but seeing as of over time eagles would of been lost, or legions would of disbaned. Eagles must of destroyed, or lost. The Auqilifer was the bearer of the eagle and seeing as how there was one of these in every cohort there could of been hundreds of thousands. Seeing as how there were tons of legions over time I have no idea.
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We're quite oblivious to any military procedure where it came to standards of abandoned, split, or otherwise 'lost' units. Maybe they were put away in some temple? Maurikios (Strategicon) describes a rank of 'bird bearer' (ornithoboros) that might refer to some ancient eagle still being carried around (during a ceremony?). The pagan meaning of the standards would have been lost of course, as would the connection to the original units.
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(05-07-2017, 01:33 AM)MarkAntony Wrote: (09-11-2012, 12:28 AM)Gaius Colletti Wrote: How many Eagles were actually created anyways? No surprise we can't find one really
How many eagles were created actually? I mean its hard to find an accurate amount but seeing as of over time eagles would of been lost, or legions would of disbaned. Eagles must of destroyed, or lost. The Auqilifer was the bearer of the eagle and seeing as how there was one of these in every cohort there could of been hundreds of thousands. Seeing as how there were tons of legions over time I have no idea.
It's one per legion, not per cohort...
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