**** ROMAN - Room 3 ****
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LEGAL DISCLAIMER OF LIABILITY FOR SALES OF ANY ITEMS THAT are PROHIBITED by State or Foreign Country Laws. It is the responsibility of the Buyer to know & determine if it is legal for these Items to be shipped to their Destination. These Item are sold Strictly for Display and / or Collecting purposes Only. Buyer assumes full responsibility for compliance with local laws regarding the purchase and possession of Items that are prohibited.
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**** MUSEUM-QUALITY REPLICA ROMAN FLAGS / STANDARDS and EAGLES ****
The
Eagle represented the power of Rome and the honor of the legions.
The ancient Roman soldiers worshipped their military standards. The eagle or
Aquila was the most important of the standards. To lose the legions eagle was
the utter disgrace for the soldiers. Why was the eagle so important?
In Roman myth and religion, the eagle was the bird of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.
He was the king of the gods. His power was the legal right to rule as a just
ruler. His was the supreme “Imperium”. Jupiter embodied Rome’s legal right
to rule the other nations of the empire.
The Roman Empire was of course conquered by the brutal force of the Roman
legions. However, military force is not enough to rule. The Romans needed a
divine legal right to conquer other nations. The symbol of Jupiter, the eagle,
was a constant reminder of this special right of the Roman legions to conquer.
It made their wars, just wars. Their deeds, rightful deeds. “Jupiter wills
it”.
To lose the legions eagle then, was to lose the right to conquer. It made
honourable Roman soldiers into a band of illegal killers and looters.
The eagle as the symbol of the “imperator”.
All this was fine and beautiful from a religious and legal point of view.
Nevertheless, to conquer an empire you need powerful armies and a real powerful
leader to sustain and command them. The only living Roman who had the economical
and political power to do this was the Roman emperor. He had been given the
“Imperium”, the legal right to rule the Roman world. He was the living
Jupiter on earth.
Therefore, the eagle was not only the symbol of the immortal ruler of the
Romans, Jupiter, but also the symbol of his mortal counterpart, the emperor. By
giving the legions their eagles, the emperor placed the legions under his
command. The legions were fighting the emperor’s battles, because he alone had
the right to wage a just war. The eagle was a constant reminder for the soldiers
that their battles were just and a constant reminder of their godlike supreme
commander in Rome.
To lose the legions eagle therefore was to lose the legal right to fight and an
insult to the imperial ruler. An emperor without his legions eagles was
symbolically powerless.
The Romans venerated power. This could be an immortal power or a mortal power.
The fact that a god or a human being had some kind of power gave him a right to
veneration. A powerless god was not worth venerating. A powerful man was. If the
powers of a mortal man were as large as the powers of an immortal god, that
superman was venerated like a god. And so were his power symbols. The eagle was
the power symbol of the emperor, the mortal Jupiter on earth. His practical and
legal power to rule was venerated by his loyal troops. They venerated the powers
of their supreme commander by venerating his eagle.
**** This Site is Under Construction ****
~Roman Standards and Aquilas / Eagles to be Posted on this Site Soon ~
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