STANDARDS. Standards and ensigns are to be regarded as efficient instruments for maintaining the ranks and files of bodies of troops ; and in Num. ii. 2 they are particularly noticed, the Israel ites being not only enjoined to encamp each by the standard of his tribe and the ensign of his father's house,' but, as the sense evidently implies, in orders or lines. It is clear, when this verse is considered in connection with the religious, military, and battle pictures on Egyptian monuments, that the Hebrews had ensigns of at least three kinds, namely-1. The great standards of the tribes, serving as rally ing signals for marching, forming in battle array, and for encamping ; 2. The divisional standards of clans (nInnvo, mishpachoth); and 3. Those of houses or families (mt. ron, beth aboth); which after the occupation of the Promised Land may gradually have been applied more immediately to corps and companies, when the tribes, as such, no longer regularly took the field. That there were several standards may be inferred from the uniform practice of the East to this day ; from their being useful in manceuvres, as already explained, and as shown in the Egyptian paintings ; and from being absolutely necessary ; for had there been only one to each tribe, it would not have been sufficiently visible to crowds of people of all ages and both sexes, amounting in most cases to more than 100,000, exclusive of the incumbrance of their baggage. Whole bodies, therefore, each under the guidance of the particular clan ensign, knew how to follow the tribal standard ; and the families offered the same convenience to the smaller divisions. It may be doubted whether these three were enough for the purpose ; for if they were carried in the ranks of the armed bodies, it must have been difficult for the households to keep near them ; and if they were with the crowd, the ranks must have had others to enable them to keep order, as we find that even in the Roman legions, thoroughly trained as they were, numerous vexilla were still held to be necessary. That there were others might be in ferred (Is. xiii. 2 ; Jer. li. 27) from the circumstance of their being planted on the summit of some high place to mark the point where troops were to as semble ; these last, therefore, were not ensig,ns of particular bodies, but signals for an understood purpose, such as both the Greeks and Romans em ployed when the general gave notice of his intention to engage by hoisting above his tent a red tunic, or when Agamemnon recalled his troops in order to rally them by the signal of a purple veil.
But what the form, colours, materials, and sym bols of the Hebrew ensigns were, it is more diffi cult to determine, chiefly because there has been a great quantity of learned trifling among Rabbinical writers and more modern heralds, all equally bent upon fearless assertions, and with so little tnie knowledge of the customs of antiquity that they have uniformly described these ensigns as flags in shape like modern banners—a forrn not yet shown to have existed in the west of Asia or Europe an terior to the first invasion of the Huns, excepting on some naval medals of the empire. In a collec tion of drawings, now before us, of 124 Egyptian, a considerable number of Persian, 33actrian, Etrus can, and Greek ensigns, and a very large series of Roman, all are effigies, spolia of animals or plants, tablets, globes, vexilla, or dragons. The vexillary or labarum form is known to be of 'Oriental (Bac trian) origin, and the dragon similarly originated among the equestrian nations of the East. It con sisted of a head of metal with an open mouth, which turned on a spindle at the neck, where a long bag of coloured stuff was sewn to it, and kept the open mouth to the wind, filling the bag with air, and causing it to flout and twist like a serpent's tail. It was the origin of the vane and pendant : when the metal head was omitted on account of its weight on the top of a spear, and the bag which formed the body and tail was cut open, or reduced to one breadth, the dragon became the flammula or pennon of more recent times. The vexillum was a substitute for a tablet ensign, being made of cloth. and spread upon a short bar, placed cross wise on the summit of a pole.