The purpose of the Late Roman Draco standard.

[Robert Vermaat]

Hi Adrian,

As to the purpose, the main one moust have been to signal where the wind came from. It was used by many peoples before the Romans, especially steppe peoples, which gives credence to that.
Also, as Arrian describes it, the first use of the draco was by no mean anything imperial.

For a reddish/purple colour of the Roman draco I have found even more evidence:

Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Severus 4.1

The night before he was born his mother dreamed that she brought forth a purple snake, ..
..mater eius pridie quam pareret somniavit se purpureum dracunculum parere, ..

Julian (still a caesar then) had a purple dragon with him at the battle of Strassbourg:
Ammianus Marcellinus 16.12.39:

'On recognising him by the purple ensign of a dragon, fitted to the top of a very long lance and spreading out like the slough of a serpent, the tribune of one of the squadrons stopped, and pale and struck with fear rode back to renew the battle.'
Quo agnito per purpureum signum draconis, summitati hastae longioris aptatum velut senectutis pendentis exuvias, stetit unius turmae tribunus et pallore timoreque perculsus ad aciem integrandam recurrit.

HOWEVER, the colour by itself is still not enough evidence that 'therefore' the draco would have to be linked to the emperor. Mind you, I'm not saying that it's impossible, but there is more evidence needed to insist that it is.

There is evidence that other peoples also used the colour purple for the tail of a draco, for instance this one from Persia:
Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Aurelianus 28.4:

Then were brought in those garments, encrusted with jewels, which we now see in the Temple of the Sun, then, too, the Persian dragon-flags and head-dresses, and a species of purple such as of nation ever afterward offered or the Roman world beheld.
tunc illatae illae vestes, quas in Templo Solis videmus, consertae gemmis, tunc Persici dracones et tiarae, tunc genus purpurae, quod postea nec ulla genus detulit nec Romanus orbis vidit.

This could very well signify that the clour purple for a tail of a draco was not an imperial symbol, but simple following an example of other peoples, something the Roman army did time after time (weapons, armour, dress).

You have proposed that the eagle was the 'physical representation of the Emperor' for the lgions. I do not think that the latter was the case. Eagles (and originally other animals) were the deities of the legions long before there even was a Roman emperor. Do we have evidence that somewhere along the line, the eagle BECAME the 'physical representation of the Emperor"?