page_title: Insignia
section_title: Ancient Rome
hierarchical_section_title: Insignia / History / Ancient Rome
context_page_description: An insignia is a sign or mark distinguishing a group, grade, rank, or function. It can be a symbol of personal power or that of an official group or governing body.
  On its own, an insignia is a sign of a specific or general authority and is usually made of metal or fabric. Together, insignias form a decoration with the different elements of a rank, grade, or dignity.
  There are many types of insignia, including civil and military decorations, crowns, emblems, and coats of arms.
context_section_description: At first, the Romans had nothing more than a handful of hay as an insignia, placed at the top of a pole like most others. Over time they took the figures of a wolf, a horse, a boar, and a minotaur until, according to Pliny the Elder, in the second year of his consulate Gaius Marius replaced them all with the eagle, which became the standard insignia for the legions. Each legion, or at least the first, carried a silver eagle with wings extended, on a sculptural base and placed at the top of a pike. The eagle was entrusted to the centurions of the Triarii.
  In the age of the Emperors, the armies were often identified by a silver hand with open palm, "manipulating" as an allusion to the maniple, or as a symbol of loyalty. The insignia was carried by an officer called the signifer. Many examples are seen on Trajan's Column, for which the preliminary plans had it topped with a bird, probably an eagle.
  Monuments surviving from antiquity usually are adorned with the insignia of crowns and small shields called clypei, on which probably would be portraits of gods or Roman heroes, with other emblems representing each legion. Some battlements are adorned with insignias as trophies of war.
  When Germanicus died, many blamed Piso and the legions removed all mention of him from their insignia.
  An eagle is visible on the top of an insignia on Trajan's Column, on a small vexillum or standard. According to Vegetius, the Roman cohorts and centurions wrote their names in the middle of their shields, so that every soldier would know his own. In the centuries before Vegetius, only maniples had insignia: cohorts did not. Sometimes only the vexillum in purple, and the insignia of the unit, were put atop a pike with no further adornment.
  The insignias below the eagle were composed of medallions, placed one above the other and nailed to the spear rod. These medallions bore the letters SPQR, Senatus Populusque Romanus, and a portrait of the Emperor.
  Each maniple and each centuria had an insignia of the same colour, on which the name of the legion and number of the centuria was embroidered in gold.
  The labarum, a standard in which Constantine the Great placed a Christogram, differed from the vexillum in that it was flat and retained its square shape, as seen in the medals of Theodosius the Great and others. The vexillum, which appears often on Trajan's Column, was not protected but at the top.
  Vegetius records that in his time the banners in the form of dragons served as insignia to the barbarians. When these came under control of the Romans, they would probably retain their military insignia, which could be confused with the eagles of the Roman legions.
  Officers of the Roman legions responsible for carrying the insignia, called insigniferos, be they infantry or cavalry would cover their armor with the pelt of a bear, lion, or other ferocious animal, to indicate the courage and tenacity with which they would defend it.
  In times of peace the legions that were stood down deposited their insignias in the public treasury under the custody of the quaestores, who would withdraw them and take them to the Campus Martius when the troops were mobilized, as Livy says: Signa quaestores ex cerario ferre ("The quartermasters must dispense the signs from their stores").
  Insignias of the Ancient Gauls and other barbarians represented several animals, including the bull, the lion, and the bear. The Ripuarian Franks had a sword as the characteristic symbol in their insignia, which among them represented the God of war; the Sicambri a head of an ox, which, according to Beneton, meant the god Apis, an Egyptian deity, from which country they were supposedly descendants; the first Frankish kings had a toad.
caption: Vexilloid of the Roman Empire