Vexillum
The vexillum was a Roman military flag: a square of cloth hung from a crossbar at the top of a spear. It was the standard of the maniples and of the cavalry, and its name came to cover any Roman standard except the legion’s eagle.
Meaning
The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, following Livy, describes the vexillum as a square piece of cloth fastened to a piece of wood fixed crosswise to the end of a spear, and calls it the cavalry flag. Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1875) sorts the Roman terms: the standard of the legion was the Aquila, those of the cohorts were signa, and those of the maniples, the smaller divisions, were vexilla, carried by vexillarii. No army carries one now, but the word survives in vexillology, the study of flags, which the Online Etymology Dictionary dates to 1959.
Origin and history
In the army Polybius describes, Smith’s dictionary says, the centurions of each maniple chose two of their bravest and strongest men as standard-bearers, the vexillarii. Over time vexillum came to mean any military standard at all except the sacred eagle of the legion, and Tacitus used vexillarii for any body of soldiers serving apart from its legion under a separate ensign, or even for an army as a whole.
The 1911 Britannica says the standards were guarded with religious veneration in the temples at Rome and that the Roman soldier swore by his ensign. A general might even throw a standard into the enemy’s ranks, so that his men would charge to win it back.
Where you’ll see it
The vexillum is best known from Roman sculpture and coins. The 1911 Britannica points to examples on Roman coins and medals, on the columns of Trajan and Antoninus, and on the Arch of Titus in Rome.
Often confused with
The Labarum, the standard of the Christian emperors, hung the same way. The 1911 Britannica says it resembled the vexillum in shape and fixing, but was of purple silk embroidered with gold, and was sometimes fixed to the staff by one side, as modern flags are, instead of hanging from a crossbar. The draco also sometimes hung from a crossbar: Smith describes it as a dragon woven on a square of cloth on a gilt staff with a crossbar, the form a vexillum had.
Read next
- Next in Historical flagsAquilaThe aquila was the eagle standard of a Roman legion, carried on a pole by the aquilifer. Pliny the Elder records that Gaius Marius made the eagle the only standard of the legions in his second consulship, which Smith’s dictionary dates to 104 BC.
- The same shape in Maya symbols and godsK’an (K’at)The fourth Maya day sign, read by scholars as the ripe grain of maize. K’iche’ daykeepers call the day K’at, the net, and ask on it for a child to be born.
See also
Labarum, Draco standard, Jolly Roger, Blackbeard’s flag, Calico Jack’s flag, Bartholomew Roberts’s flag.
Sources
- Flag (1911 Encyclopædia Britannica), Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition (1911), vol. 10, Encyclopædia Britannica, via Wikisource, Roman standards
- Signa Militaria (Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1875), James Yates, in William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875, pp. 1044–1046, LacusCurtius (Bill Thayer), p. 1045
- Exercitus (Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1875), William Ramsay, in William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, John Murray, London, 1875, LacusCurtius (Bill Thayer), Polybius’s account of the maniple; Vexillarii
- Vexillology (Online Etymology Dictionary), Internet Archive copy, 1 April 2023, Online Etymology Dictionary
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from lines or squares and rectangles.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 14, 2026. How we research
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