11-10-2010, 04:16 PM
So here's the list of what we know so far:
1. The discs could represent something to the soldiers, but we don't really know what: number of one sort or another, battle distinctions or something else.
2. Cohorts (although we know that they had some kind of distinctive that was visually recognized, e.g., the infiltrators during a civil war who entered the enemy camp by using purloined shields) may not have had standards anyhow, nor did centuries have their own.
3. There are few bits of signa remaining to make things easy for us to understand. We don't know much except for a few admittedly stylized sculptures and a few mosaics/paintings.
4. The command "Ad Signa" would be meaningless unless there were signa placed somewhere around which to rally. Seems reasonable that there would be enough that any soldier anywhere on the field could find one to move toward. (Lots of sources, of course, but no need to list any of them here, right?)
This leads to the question (which started this whole thing anyway)...If a cohort were sent somewhere as a unit, they would take with them a vexillium, which would bear:
a. The legion number on the banner?
b. A plaque or plate with the cohort number?
c. An emblem of some kind harkening back to the original (animal, raised hand, wreath) unit?
d. A spear head? (At least one account describes a soldier using a signum of some type to stab an attacker)
**
The whole reason for this line of questioning is that our separated unit (200 miles from the HQ) wants to have something for the times when we come together, and especially for the times we have some kind of public display separated from the parent group. Easier to explain a vexillium when there's one for the public to see/handle. I'm not in the mode of "let's do this just because we think it's cool", honest.
1. The discs could represent something to the soldiers, but we don't really know what: number of one sort or another, battle distinctions or something else.
2. Cohorts (although we know that they had some kind of distinctive that was visually recognized, e.g., the infiltrators during a civil war who entered the enemy camp by using purloined shields) may not have had standards anyhow, nor did centuries have their own.
3. There are few bits of signa remaining to make things easy for us to understand. We don't know much except for a few admittedly stylized sculptures and a few mosaics/paintings.
4. The command "Ad Signa" would be meaningless unless there were signa placed somewhere around which to rally. Seems reasonable that there would be enough that any soldier anywhere on the field could find one to move toward. (Lots of sources, of course, but no need to list any of them here, right?)
This leads to the question (which started this whole thing anyway)...If a cohort were sent somewhere as a unit, they would take with them a vexillium, which would bear:
a. The legion number on the banner?
b. A plaque or plate with the cohort number?
c. An emblem of some kind harkening back to the original (animal, raised hand, wreath) unit?
d. A spear head? (At least one account describes a soldier using a signum of some type to stab an attacker)
**
The whole reason for this line of questioning is that our separated unit (200 miles from the HQ) wants to have something for the times when we come together, and especially for the times we have some kind of public display separated from the parent group. Easier to explain a vexillium when there's one for the public to see/handle. I'm not in the mode of "let's do this just because we think it's cool", honest.
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)
Saepe veritas est dura.
(David Wills)
Saepe veritas est dura.
