The Draco standard

[Michael Kerr]

On reading the Ars Tactica book 35 I think Arrian gives a pretty good explanation as to the purpose of draco standard and how Scythians/Roxolani/Iazyges & later Roman cavalry used them. While Roxolani fought on the side of the Dacians, the Iazyges fought for the Romans in Trajan's war. Of the 2 Roman sources mentioned, he was the closest source to Trajan's wars in Dacia & a cavalryman to boot, who actually served in Trajan's Parthian wars, he was an expert horseman & hunter who obviously studied his enemies' tactics & methods as he showed in his “Array against the Alans." The Strategikon written a few hundred years later mentions cavalry drills like the Scythian & Alan drills where groups of horsemen perform complex circular movements with some travelling clockwise & others counter clockwise & attacking in pulse like motions at perceived weak points so maybe draco standards would have helped in co-ordinating these manoeuvres. Especially in the heat of battle.

35.2
In their charge the sections are distinguished by their standards, not merely Roman but also Scythian, so as to make the charge more terrifying.
35.3
The Scythian standards take the form of serpents of even length and hanging from staves. They are made by sewing pieces of dyed cloth together, with their heads and whole body right down to their tails like snakes, so as to produce as terrifying a likeness as possible.
35.4
When the horses are halted one sees these devices as no more than pieces of cloth hanging down, but when the horses are in motion, they are filled out by the breeze and look remarkably like beasts and even hiss as the rapid movement sends the air through them.
35.5
These standards do not merely provide the eye with a pleasurable thrill, but they also serve a useful purpose in keeping apart (the sections of) the charge and preventing the various ranks from tangling with each other.
35.6
For those who bear them are the men most skilled in doubling back & wheeling and they choose to make continually new circles and one direct charge after another, while the body of the troops have only to follow each his own standard.
35.7
Thus the succession of various kinds of wheeling, of manifold types of doubling back and of charging in different ways nevertheless causes no confusion in the ranks. For if one standard were to be confused with another or one horse to collide with another, the whole purpose both as a display and as a practical exercise would be lost.

The English translation I used is based on the Teubner text of A.G. Roos (rev. Edn. G.W. Wirth, Leipzig, 1968)
I know a lot of stuff has been covered before but I did enjoy this topic.
Regards
Michael Kerr