(consul in 517) in consular garb, holding an eagle-topped sceptreThe single-headed Roman continued to be used in Byzantium, although far more rarely. Thus 'eagle-bearers' ( ὀρνιθόβορας), descendants of the of the Roman legions, are still attested in the 6th century known as the, although it is unknown whether the standards they carried bore any resemblance to the legionary. Eagle-topped scepters were a frequent feature of, and appear on coins until the reign of ( r. 711–713).
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It continued in use in bas-reliefs in churches and funerary monuments until well into the 11th century, however. In the last centuries of the Empire it is recorded as being sewn on imperial garments, and shown in as decorating the cushions ( suppedia) on which the emperors stood. Double-headed eagle The emblem mostly associated with the Byzantine Empire is the. It is not of Byzantine invention, but a traditional motif dating to times, and the Byzantines themselves only used it in the last centuries of the Empire.
The date of its adoption by the Byzantines has been hotly debated by scholars.In 1861, the Greek scholar wrote that it was adopted by the in 1048. Although this was based on no evidence whatsoever, this view gained wide acceptance and circulation.
More careful examination of the primary sources by and demonstrated that although as a decorative motif the double-headed eagle begins to appear in during the 10th/11th century, it is not securely attested in connection with the Emperor until the of in 1301, where he is shown on a suppedion decorated with the device. Lambros suggested that it was adopted from Hittite rock-carvings, while A. Soloviev argued in favour of a late adoption around 1288, as a talisman against the first successes in Anatolia, as a symbolic gesture reaffirming Byzantine rule over both European and Asian territories.The double-headed eagle has been shown to derive from Central Asian traditions, and spread to the eastern Mediterranean with the.
Thus,in the late 12th and throughout the 13th century, the eagle was used in northern and: the sultans of used it as their insigne, the coins of the sported it, and and the sultan likewise used it as a decorative motif in their buildings. This usage declined sharply after the in 1243, as many Seljuq traditions of pre-Islamic origin were abandoned, including the depiction of animals. The motif continues to appear sporadically as architectural decoration in the 14th century, and in some Ottoman coinage in the 15th century. In addition, the double-headed eagle may have been in use in the established after the: according to, the first Latin Emperor, wore a cloak embroidered with eagles for his coronation; his daughters used the same device in their arms; and the Byzantine historian reports that the Latin emperors struck bronze coins with a double-headed eagle on them. Device of Andronikos II Palaiologos, in the so-called 'Flag of Andronikos Palaiologos' kept in the.The used the double-headed eagle as a symbol of the senior members of the imperial family.
It was mostly used on clothes and other accoutrements, as codified in the mid-14th century by in his Book of Offices. According to Kodinos, the emperor bore special boots ( tzangia) with eagles made of pearls on both shins and on the instep; the wore similar boots of white and purple, and featured pearl-embroidered eagles on their saddles, while the saddle cloth and their tents were white decorated with red eagles. Similarly, the wore blue boots with golden wire-embroidered eagles on a red background, while his saddle cloth was blue with four red embroidered eagles. The only occasion the double-headed eagle appears on a flag is on the ship that bore Emperor to the, as mentioned by Sphrantzes and confirmed by its depiction in the of.
According to a handful of surviving examples, such as the supposed 'Flag of Andronikos II Palaiologos' in the, or a frontispiece of a Bible belonging to, the Byzantine double-headed eagle was golden on a red background. Likewise, in Western from the 15th century, the golden double-headed eagle on a red shield is given as the arms of the 'Empire of the East' or 'of Constantinople', or as emblem of members of the imperial family. The representation of the eagle on a shield is an adaptation to Western heraldic practice, however; the Byzantines never used it in this manner for themselves, although they employed it in a Western context, e.g. In the award of the right to bear the imperial arms to the Florentine citizen Giacomo Paolo di Morellis in 1439.Within the Byzantine world, the eagle was also used by the semi-autonomous, who were younger imperial princes, and by the of, who were Palaiologan relatives and vassals.
The double-headed eagle was used in the breakaway as well, being attested imperial clothes but also on flags. Indeed, Western of the 14th–15th centuries use the double-headed eagle (silver/golden on red/) as the symbol of Trebizond rather than Constantinople.
Single-headed eagles are also attested in Trapezuntine coins, and a 1421 source depicts the Trapezuntine flag as yellow with a red single-headed eagle. Apparently, just as in the metropolitan Byzantine state, the use of both motifs, single and double-headed, continued side by side. Double-headed eagle reliefs are also attested for the walls of Trebizond, with one example preserved in a church in, which is very similar to 13th-century Seljuq examples. Modern scholars commonly consider the double-headed eagle to have been adopted by the Grand Komnenos emperors of Trebizond after their recognition of the suzerainty of, and intermarriage with, the Palaiologos dynasty in the 1280s. Likewise, the small Byzantine in the, whose rulers conducted marriage alliances with both the Palaiologoi and the Grand Komnenoi, also used the double-headed eagle in the 15th century.Other Balkan states followed the Byzantine model as well: chiefly the, but also the and under George Kastrioti (better known as ), while after 1472 the eagle was adopted by and then. In Western Europe, the likewise adopted the double-headed eagle in the mid-13th century, under, and used it side-by-side with the single-headed version. Arms of Andronikos II Palaiologos, located in the now demolished sea walls of Constantinople, sketched by Mary Adelaide Walker in the 19th century.Another very Western design could be found on one of the now-demolished towers of the seaward, which had been restored by (r.
1282–1328) and bore that emperor's emblem, a crowned holding a sword.The frequent use of the symbol, which appears on coins, military insignia and, perhaps, as a sometime municipal emblem of the imperial city, appears to be connected to the cult of Lampadephoros ('light-bearer') in Hellenistic-era Byzantium. In AD 330, Constantine the Great used this symbol while re-dedicating Constantinople to the.It is known that, daughter of the last megas doux of the Byzantine Empire, after the fall of Constantinople and her emigration to Italy, made a seal with her coat of arms which included two lions facing each other, each holding a sword on the right paw, and a crescent with the left. However, this most likely represents a design that was created after her emigration to Italy. On the other hand, the adaptation of Byzantine forms to Western uses can be seen with the seal of, which includes the imperial double-headed eagle on an, a practice never used in Byzantium. Military flags and insignia. A coin of Constantine (c.337) depicting his labarum spearing a serpent.The in the late 3rd century continued to use the insignia usual to the: the eagle-tipped, the square, and the imago (the bust of the emperor on a pole). In addition, the use of the, adopted from the, was widespread among cavalry and units.
Few of them seem to have survived beyond the 4th century, however. The aquila fell out of use with the breaking up of the old legions, the imago was abandoned with the adoption of, and only the vexillum and the draco are still occasionally attested in the 5th century and beyond.
306–337) inserted the emblem in Roman military standards, resulting in the so-called. In iconographical evidence, this commonly takes the form of the Chi-Rho embroidered on the field of a vexillum, but literary evidence suggests also its use as a symbol at the head of a staff. The labarum, although common in the 4th and 5th centuries, vanishes entirely in the 6th, and reappears only much later in altered form as part of the imperial regalia.