In answer to critics who thought it impossible that the 5th-6th century people of Birdoswald could still have been using a Dacian-style draco in their wars, I put the following question to Professor Roger Tomlin. Although we cannot necessarily extrapolate the survival of such a standard from the time of the Roman withdrawal to Uther's time, such ethnically significant, venerated objects tended to be retained for long periods.
My rambling question:
"We don't know a lot about what devices Romans used on their shields, unit flags, etc. Apparently, legions had their eagle, cohorts their draco. The Notitia Dignitatum shows shields in the later period, but the authenticity of these has been called into question.
I was thinking about the Dacian unit at Banna/Birdoswald, whose soldiers were permitted to retain their falx as a regimental symbol on carved stones. Coulston says:
"The Birdoswald falces may indicate a unique regimental badge or the carrying of falces, instead of spathae, by the Dacian auxiliarii. A jealously guarded regimental tradition such as is suggested would have a close modern parallel in the Gurkha soldiers with their kukris. A tentative comparison might be made with the ethnic dress of the Chester ‘Sarmatian’; and, according to Hyginus, irregular Dacian units were used in the later second century. The use of falces therefore bears consideration. It is certainly unusual for an auxiliary cohors to depict a regimental weapon or badge in sculpture."
BUT... Dacia is symbolized on Roman coins holding the wolf-headed draco.
As the Dacians had a wolf-headed draco, might we assume that any unit device might depict just that mythical beast?
Yes, I realize that by the 4th century the draco had become standardized (pun intended!) in the army. But would the Dacian unit have been allowed to retain their wolf-headed dragon as the unit's special insignum?
Reasonable? Or is this something the Romans would have forbidden them to use because of its ethnic significance?
Could the field signa militaria of a normal Roman auxiliary unit such as the cohors I Aelia Dacorum have been their wolf-headed draco?
Unless it were outlawed, I find it hard to believe the Dacians would abandon their own draco?"
To which Professor Tomlin replied:
To which Professor Tomlin replied:
"I see no reason why the Dacian cohorts would not have been allowed to use a wolf flag. True, it was 'ethnic' like the falx, but it had been conquered by the Romans, since it is depicted among the Roman trophies on Trajan's Column. And the Dacian auxiiaries were now 'Romans'. Note that I'm here using the term 'flag' loosely – I only meant a windsock, the animal's head attached to a cylinder of fabric which streamed out behind in the breeze.
I don't object to the idea that the Birdoswald cohort might have had a wolf's head windsock!"
Some articles I've done on the draco and its possible presence at Banna/Birdoswald:
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