a military standard of the Roman empire. It consisted of a long lance, crossed at right angles near the top by a staff, from which hung a small flag or streamer of purple cloth inwrought with gold and precious stones, and bearing the effigy of the emperor. Constantine the Great, when he embraced Christianity, substituted for that device a crown, a cross, and the initial letters of the name Jesus Christus, and made it the imperial standard. (Prudent, in Symmoch. I. 466; Niceph. H. E. vii. 37.)