The Draco standard

[Robert Vermaat]

I am not disputing that dracones (and I use the term to include those with and without animal heads) had the appearance of and acted like windsocks, i.e., that air passed through a fabric tube causing it to extend and flutter about. My point is that 'windsock' has connotations of purpose for which no evidence in the ancient world has been adduced. Therefore, we should be careful about using the word.

I agree, but on the other hand we should also be careful with excluding the equally obvious: many battle standards are meant to be seen, but have several functions. Like flags, windsocks can have more than one purpose, one of them being to judge the direction and speed of the wind.
Also, we should not press our sources too much - I'm no supporter of 'absence of evidence', but I am familiar with sources from this period that simply 'don't state the obvious'. o when Arrian or Ammianus do not mention windsocks I'm not overly bothered by that.

What came first, the chicken or the egg, or in our case, the windsock or the draco?
We don't know is whether these windsocks/dracones started out as an attempt to make a dragon or a snake battle standard, and only then someone found that they performed as a wind-banner as well, or the other way around. Right now, seeing such windsocks/dracones being shaped also as wolves, dogs, even fish, I'm inclined to go for the functional purpose of windsock first, and only then for the artistic shape that resulted from windsocks being used as battle standards.

It's a bit like modern kites. When I was young we flew rhomboid pieces of fabric, while today they fly with all kinds of modern shapes and sizes, some of them birds. But in the future, they will probably debate on some forum whether kites resembled birds, or later birdkites started out as a toy that flew.