Image Details

Photo by Roger B. Ulrich

MILITARY STANDARDS of auxiliary units—like the one under Pilate’s command—did not normally feature imperial images, unlike those of praetorian units pictured here facing Emperor Trajan (right) on Trajan’s Column in Rome (113 C.E.). The standards captured in this episode from the First Dacian War consist of horizontal and vertical wreaths (coronae), portrait busts (imagines) in circular frames and rectangular shields. Josephus in his reporting of Pilate’s controversy seems to suggest that busts of Emperor Tiberius were attached to the military standards only secondarily.