Deskford Draco

[Nathan Ross]

if you follow Claudian's listing, the 'serpens' invairably comes after the draco - which might indicate a status order: the Eagle as the high imperial standard of old, the higher status equites draco, followed finally by the infantry serpent.

Hmm, an ingenious and very plausible suggestion!

With the caveat, of course, that Claudian was a poet/panegyricist who often appears to mix up his military terminology, and that his (near) contemporary Vegetius gives the draco to the infantry...

Also, isn't it the serpents that are doing the 'hissing' here?:

Hi volucres volunt aquilas, hi picta draconum / Colla levant, multusque tumet per nubila serpens iratus stimulante Noto vivitque receptis flatibus et vario mentitur sibila tractu.

"These [troops] bear flying eagles, those raise the painted heads of dragons, and many a serpent writhes among the clouds coming angrily to life when the wind animates them with its breath and by various exhalations pretends to hiss".*

(Pan. de III Cons. Hon. Aug. 138-141)

Sidonius Apollinaris, meanwhile, in his Panegyric to Majorian, writes of a textilis anguis (fabric snake or dragon?) "its throat swelling when the breezes blow into it; with yawning jaws the image counterfeits a raging hunger; the wind drives the fabric to a fury whenever it beats upon that supple back with its breath, and the hollow stomach can no longer take so much air"

(Pan. Maioriano Aug. 402-407) - both quotes from here, which follows with some other observations on later military banners and signa.


*EDIT - quick note - I've often assumed that the draco was made to 'hiss' by the air entering the open 'mouth' in some way - but 'exhalation' suggests the opposite. If the pointed end of the 'sock' was fitted with a narrow metal tube, like a whistle, then would the air being forced out through it made the required noise?