12-23-2010, 10:23 PM
Quote:Ok, what we have is basically Vegetius telling us that every Roman unit, be it a legion or auxilia unit, had a Draco standard. The purpose of this standard is unclear, other than it had some sort of signalling purpose, which may well have been to signal the location of the units overall commander within the unit. This indeed would have lead to what you described as a 'wood of dracones', but not a forest as it would have been limited to one per unit.
The colour of the Draco itself appears to be purple or a similar colour and there is no evidence at present of them being of any other colour. This is derived not only from Ammianus but from several other sources that have been quoted here and elsewhere.
Unless some other evidence from the ancient sources comes to light, this is as good as any theory proposed about the purpose of the Draco standard, which of course upto now there appears to have been no theory at all!!!
What about the Ars tactica -Arr 35.1-6 - it talks of different coloured dracos.....
