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Live Eagles as Standards
#16
Stoll suggests in his article that the eagle's not alive at all. The cage is in fact a box, a mini-temple, for this sacred object of the legion. <p>Greets<br>
<br>
Jasper</p><i></i>
Greets!

Jasper Oorthuys
Webmaster & Editor, Ancient Warfare magazine
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#17
<em>the Louvre Praetorians</em><br>
<br>
IIRC the common consensus is now that they are <em>not</em> Praetorians but legionaries from the Arch of Claudius (one line of reasoning being 'why would Praetorians have eagles, which are legionary standards?'). As has been pointed out before on this board their heads were heavily patched in later times.<br>
<br>
Mike Bishop <p></p><i></i>
You know my method. It is founded upon the observance of trifles

Blogging, tweeting, and mapping Hadrian\'s Wall... because it\'s there
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#18
Indeed Mike. But it's a sort of "official" name.<br>
If they were legionaries, BTW, that should demonstrate that they did have parade outfits.<br>
..And the explanation of the mini-temple makes definitely more sense than the live bird in a cage..<br>
However I still think the Louvre Praetorians, OK, so called Preatorians carry a live bird. <p></p><i></i>
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#19
Avete omnes,<br>
<br>
Antoninus, Your idea about the living eagle on the so called "Praetorian" relief from the Louvre is a really fascinating theory! Perhaps You remember that older thread about Praetorian cavalry where I placed some photos of a diorama I made with the central soldiers from the relief in the foreground.<br>
<br>
When I made it I wondered already about the eagle standard but as I had no other idea I tried to reconstruct it as an - although unusual - standard:<br>
<br>
<img src="http://people.freenet.de/u-bahr/Praet3.jpg" style="border:0;"/><br>
<br>
But I think Your theory has some pro's and contra's:<br>
<br>
pro: 1. the absolutely unique form of the eagle on the standard; normally they are shown with their wings hold upright and occasionally with a laurel wreath around the wings or they are shown with spread out wings, e.g. the one given back by a Parthian to a Roman officer on the Augustus statue from Prima Porta. It looks as if the artist wanted to show something different from the other known eagle standard depictions - just a real living animal.<br>
2. the off-central position of the eagle. Also unique, but typical for a living bird that would not sit quiet on the podest.<br>
3. the size - this eagle seems to be bigger than every other one of the known eagle standards. Indeed all reconstructions of re-enactment groups show eagle standards that are much smaller than a real eagle. And I think there is no need to ask ornithologists for the existence of smaller eagles - Roman artists usually tended to scale down the size of things (e.g. the scuta on Traian's column or generally all cheek guards in order to show more of the faces).<br>
<br>
contra: 1. the man carrying the standard is dressed like a normal aquilifer with a animal skin (bear, wulf or lion).<br>
2. the absence of references in the ancient texts about living eagles as mascots; this is only a negative proof and does not exclude that they existed nevertheless.<br>
<br>
The problem is that we cannot proove the existence of living eagles as standards or mascots, but also we cannot exclude it. But IMHO there are some indications more for it; today I would probably tend to reconstruct the eagle as a living animal.<br>
<br>
Uwe <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=uwebahr>Uwe Bahr</A> at: 9/4/04 12:47 pm<br></i>
Greets - Uwe
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#20
I don't know -- I hadn't seen the Praetorians relief before. But looking at it now, I will agree that it does look strange and different from most of the stylized eagles, but it really doesn't look much like a 'real' eagle to me, either. It may just be a trick of the artist, but the color and especially the reflection of the light off of the bird looks much more like off a metal statue than a real animal. The use of broad scales to recreate 'feathers' and the rounded edges, especially on the tail, look more like a sculptor's trick than the painter's, although I certainly can't prove it. Mostly, though, the legs and feet look very fake to me -- especially the way that both feet seem to come down in a straight line in front of the crossbar -- they look more like supports for something artificial than the feet of a real eagle.<br>
Again, though, that's just me. I'm far from an expert. <p></p><i></i>
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#21
Qvcatullus,<br>
<br>
The picture shown above is not the actual relief from the Louvre, but Uwe's admirably well made and painted model based on the sculpture. As far as I know no colour now survives on the (stone) relief now in the Louvre in Paris.<br>
<br>
Crispvs <p></p><i></i>
Who is called \'\'Paul\'\' by no-one other than his wife, parents and brothers.  :!: <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_exclaim.gif" alt=":!:" title="Exclamation" />:!:

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#22
qvcatullus,<br>
<br>
please accept my apologies, I am always endeavored to insert pictures into comments in order to make the text more expressive. I did not want to put confusion into this topic that deserves serious discussion. Indeed I read Your comment but did not dare to be so bold to believe that my diorama could be confounded with the original relief.<br>
Here You can find a picture of the Louvre relief:<br>
<br>
[url=http://www.livius.org/a/1/romanempire/praet_guard.jpg" target="top]www.livius.org/a/1/romanempire/praet_guard.jpg[/url]<br>
<br>
<br>
Crispvs,<br>
<br>
thank You for Your friendly words - should I better withdraw the picture from the text?<br>
<br>
Uwe <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p200.ezboard.com/bromanarmytalk.showUserPublicProfile?gid=uwebahr>Uwe Bahr</A> at: 9/7/04 12:18 pm<br></i>
Greets - Uwe
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#23
Having worked with live eagles before, they can be some of the most dangerous birds to work with. Not only do they have razor-sharp beaks and talons, the bigger ones have enough strength in their feet to easily break a man's arm. Personally, I think falconers that fly golden eagles are slightly insane. I've only done some work with a rehabbed bald eagle. You get a different perspective on life when you have a 3-foot tall bird sitting on your arm. Heck, even a red-tailed hawk which is about half that size commands respect. Little kestrels, which are about pigeon size, really want to be respected but you just can't take them seriously. They're so cute!<br>
<br>
Here's a page on eagle species: www.hawk-conservancy.org/...gles.shtml<br>
<br>
The Imperial eagle, the Bonelli's eagle, the golden eagle, and the short-toed eagle are all found in Italy.<br>
<br>
It would be interesting to see if there was research on what kind of eagle the standard was based on or if it was just a "generic" type of eagle. My thinking is that it was a generic eagle or based on the golden eagle, which is common in Europe as well as here in America.<br>
<br>
But back to the original point, using a live eagle on the standard or at least as a unit mascot would require a specially trained falconer who took care of the bird. I'll have to look back in my falconry books but the art goes back many hundreds, if not thousands of years in the Middle East and India. I've been meaning to research whether or not the Romans had falconers as the Egyptians did. At any rate, training birds of prey is a delicate art and many birds are trained from the moment they are hatched. Being mainly solitary animals, they don't really bond to you like a dog or a horse so you have to use straight classical conditioning techniques instead of rewards and punishments. ("Bad bird, no no!" does not work on birds of prey.<br>
<br>
Secondly, you really can't march around with a bird of prey on a perch. It will try and fly away if it gets scared or if it sees a tasty morsel it wants to go after. Most falconers use hoods on their birds when they are transporting them to keep them calm and tied leather straps called "jesses" to their legs to hold on to them. The birds on the standard and in the cages obviously don't have hoods on them nor do they have jesses. A screeching, pissy bird in a cage or tied to a standard just isn't cool. Plus you have the added bonus of an irate or scared bird lunging for your face. It's all fun and games until you loose an eye, literally!<br>
<br>
Now live birds of prey have been used as symbols of power for centuries in many cultures. But they are usually taken care of by trained falconers and only taken out for hunting or sat on perches in the throne room, not taken out on the battlefield. So I don't think the Romans would go to the trouble of having a live bird with them on the march. Maybe for parades but then you'd have to deal with the men behind the bird getting hit with bird poop (fondly known as "slice" or "chalk".) Raptors shoot out, not drop straight down so the guys behind the standard would get whitewashed. Not good for an overall impression. But it would be interesting to see if the Romans did use live eagles or other birds of prey for any ceremonial purposes.<br>
<br>
Deb <p></p><i></i>
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Deb
Sulpicia Lepdinia
Legio XX
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#24
Deb, thanks a lot for the details on eagles. Quite convincing argument against carrying birds of prey in battles or on parade.<br>
But well.. Still that eagle has folded wings, is bigger than the usual metal specimen and is offset on its perch..<br>
I suppose you know those guys who hunt on horseback with golden eagles, somewhere on the steppe (Khazaks or Buriats?). I discovered them in a National Geographic show on TV. I don't recall them using hoods, although I think they use leg straps.<br>
However they're not on parade but in the bird's natural habitat and they let it do what it was born for, that is hunt.<br>
After a while, actually -- and if I recall well-- they let the eagle go since with age it becomes unmanageable.<br>
...And about the "chalk".. I guess keeping a reasonable distance behind the perch would solve the problem. They don't shoot further than 30 feet don't they?<br>
<p></p><i></i>
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#25
I've never been out hunting with eagles but I've been out with hawks and falcons. You don't hood a bird when you're out hunting because it's got better eyesight than you do so you want it to look around. But when you are transporting it or need to keep it calm, you put a hood on it.<br>
<br>
Some birds like crowds and attention or they learn to get used to it like rehab birds that are used in educational programs. Most of them don't like the noise and the activity so it's easier to keep them hooded. I used to tie my nature center's kestrel to the headrest of the front seat of my car and let him ride on it. Some guys put them in specially-made boxes with hoods and transport them that way. So I guess the bird in the cage could be a real one. A full-grown golden eagle is going to be about 10-13lbs. Add to that the weight of the cage and the bars so I'd think the standard would be really top heavy and hard to carry about. One that's merely tied to the perch might work, especially if it had been hand-raised and was used to people and crowds.<br>
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Again, I don't know that much about hunting with eagles but letting them go when they are older sounds about right. When you apprentice as a falconer in the US, you have to trap an immature hawk on its Fall migration to use as your first bird. You hunt it through the winter and then let it go in the Spring and trap another new hawk in the Fall. After you've mastered that, you can move on to raising young birds, which is a different set of skills and training. Releasing older eagles also probably has to do with self-preservation. As I mentioned before, they can break a grown-man's arm without much effort. Best to hunt them when they are young and don't know their own strength. So the eagle on the standard could be a juvie as well.<br>
<br>
Deb <p></p><i></i>
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Deb
Sulpicia Lepdinia
Legio XX
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#26
I had a new slant on this from a child at a school iwas lecturing to who said the legions marched behind a seagull! He did not specify if it was alive or not. <p></p><i></i>
Quod imperatum fuerit facimus et ad omnem tesseram parati erimus
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#27
According to the historical restore of this relief, we know that only foreground heads were added (1), while the background ones were not. In the image below is possible to verify that the head comes together with the big piece (2) assembled on the background.
What makes this a "pretorian" relief is the cheekpiece with a skorpion on the original head.
image:
www.romanhideout.com/images/FR/Paris/1.asp

This could mean that eagle standards were used also by pretorians (?). Live or not.
Luca Bonacina
Provincia Cisalpina - Mediolanum
www.cisalpina.net
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#28
I have forgotten to add my tidbits on this subject, thanks Lepidina for pointing out the stuff on Falconry. I volunteer at a wildlife clinic and I'm friends with local Raptor Rehabbers/Educators, one of which has the most incredibly gorgeous, massive, 27 year old Golden Eagle, and she will most certainly command a respect when she is doing live education programs. It is a little intimidating to see the handler struggle to hold this bird on her entire forearm, using the other hand for support! Some of those rehabbers are, or were, Falconers, and it's not the kind of profession that you can do at one's leisure, it takes 24/7 dedication, and you have to learn to deal with getting a talon or two through the arm, hand, or face now and then.<br>
so I doubt if there were any live birds being used with standards, the bearers would not be able to see combat, nor would they dare have the bird be anywhere near the field.<br>
<br>
As Lepidina points out, a 13 pound bird with a foot-spread about human-hand-sized, with the hallux being longer than a Tiger's claw, and can crush with an estimated 1,000 - 1,500 PSI pressure...With additude...It's just not going to be pretty.<br>
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I also doubt a live bird would make a good standard, I doubt the bird is going to be comfortable standing on a tall standard bouncing and swinging around all day. Then there is that poop problem. Although I suppose it could be worse if they had a [Turkey] Vulture, which can projectile-vomit, and can "aim" with about 6 feet in range...Ick.<br>
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I do think the idea is really kinda nifty though, I'm gathering if they did have live birds, they probably transported them in special boxes or cages, and then had them tied to a standard-looking perch which was probably a static-display that wasn't moved around if at all.<br>
<br>
Although I do want to convice the Eagle's rehabber to get a picture with me in my Roman gear with her, but the rehabber is quite protective of her Eagle, and she doesn't want to pry the talons out of me or her if the Eagle freaks out with some doofus in shiny, clanky armor.<br>
(She had a horrible experience doing a Renaissance fair...Once...In a period gown, her birds not recognzing her mistook her for "enemy" and...gave her a hard time )<br>
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I know in my warped little fantasy mind if I ever did have a chance to care for a Golden Eagle (for education), I'd want to have a male and name him Marius, cause you just can't pass that up. Although the females are twice the size and impose more "respect" than males, oh well.<br>
<br>
Lepidina - "Bad Bird" doesn't work, fer sure, but have you tried a spray bottle with water or a rolled up newspaper? <p></p><i></i>
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#29
If I remember rightly, in Bello Gallica Caesar recounts an incident when his troops were being rather more timid than he would have liked. They then observed an eagle flying across the valley and, seeing it as a favourable omen from Jupiter, took heart and pressed the battle home. The point here is that if they had been carrying an eagle with them as a standard or mascot it would have been an easy trick to release it to create a convenient omen. So easy it would probably have become quite common and in fact so easy that I doubt that any of Caesar's campaign hardened veterans would have been fooled. Most of the combat veterans I have known have seemed far from naive and I doubt that, however superstitious they were, Caesar's soldiers would have been naive when it came to cheap tricks with an eagle they would all immediately recognise as their own. I think also that Caesar would not have mentioned the incident if it had not been unusual. I think therefore that this incident joins the comments above in arguing against live eagles as standards, certainly on campaign. The trick would be too easy/tempting and the incident was clearly unusual.<br>
<br>
Crispvs <p></p><i></i>
Who is called \'\'Paul\'\' by no-one other than his wife, parents and brothers.  :!: <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_exclaim.gif" alt=":!:" title="Exclamation" />:!:

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