Fosbroke, in his _Dictionary of Antiquities_, has furnished us with most of the information on this subject which is pertinent to our design. We shall add such comments as will tend to illustrate our conclusions. Under the head of standards, he writes:-- "The invention began among the Egyptians, who bore an animal at the end of a spear; but among the Græco-Egyptians, the standards either resemble, at top, a round-headed knife, or an expanded semicircular fan. Among the earlier Greeks, it was a piece of armor at the end of a spear; though Agamemnon, in Homer, uses a purple veil to rally his men, &c. Afterwards, the Athenians bore the olive and owl; the other nations the effigies of their tutelary gods, or their particular symbols, at the end of a spear. The Corinthians carried a _pegasus_, the Messenians their initial [Mu], and the Lacedæmonians, [Lambda]; the Persians, a golden eagle at the end of a spear, fixed upon a carriage; the ancient Gauls, an animal, chiefly a bull, lion, and bear. Sir S. R. Meyrick gives the following account of the Roman standards. 'Each _century_, or at least each _maniple_ of troops, had its proper standard, and standard-bearer. This was originally merely a bundle of hay on the top of a pole; afterwards, a spear with a crosspiece of wood on the top; sometimes the figure of a hand above, probably in allusion to the word _manipulus_; and below, a small round or oval shield, generally of silver or of gold. On this metal plate were anciently represented the warlike deities Mars or Minerva; but after the extinction of the commonwealth, the effigies of the emperors or their favorites. It was on this account that the standards were called _numina legionum_, and held in religious veneration. The standards of different divisions had certain letters inscribed on them, to distinguish the one from the other. The standard of a legion, according to Dio, was a silver eagle, with expanded wings, on the top of a spear, sometimes holding a thunderbolt in its claws; hence the word _aquila_ was used to signify a legion. The place for this standard was near the general, almost in the centre. Before the time of Marius, figures of other animals were used, and it was then carried in front of the first maniple of the _triarii_. The _vexillum_, or flag of the cavalry (that of the infantry being called _signum_; an eagle on a thunderbolt, within a wreath, in Meyrick, pl. 6, fig. 15), was, according to Livy, a square piece of cloth, fixed to a crossbar on the end of a spear. The _labarum_, borrowed by the Greek emperors from the Celtic tribes, by whom it was called _llab_, was similar to this, but with the monogram of Christ worked upon it. Thus Sir S. R. Meyrick. The dragon, which served for an ensign to barbarous nations, was adopted by the Romans, probably from the mixture of auxiliaries with the legions. At first, the dragon, as the general ensign of the barbarians, was used as a trophy by the