in Antiquity, a standard-bearer. Several nations, as the Persians, Parthians, and Scythians, bore dragons on their standards; and hence the standards themselves were called dracones, or dragons. The Romans are generally supposed to have borrowed the same custom from the Parthians; though Casaubon thinks they took it from the Daci, and Codin that they derived it from the Assyrians.

The Roman dracones were figures of dragons painted in red upon the flags, as appears from Ammianus Marcellinus; but amongst the Persians and Parthians they were, like the Roman eagle, figures in full relievo.