CIRCA - >104 BC  𖤍 - an eagle with wings elevated, beak + talons prominent

HISTORY: The Roman Empire🔍 didn't use heraldry in the traditional European sense but military units e.g. did employ animal

symbols to identify themselves, 5 initially; a 𓃦 wolf, an 𓃓 ox (with the man's head), a 𓃗 horse, a 𓃟 boar & most recognizably

the 𓅛 eagle, which has endured the ages, particularly through it use by the Byzantines🔍 (i.e. the Eastern Romans, after the

west🔍 fell) and their subsequent contact with 12c- 13c crusaders, (and the establishment of crusader ruled Frankish lands.)

        Today the imperial eagle still serves as important motif in modern flags & national seals/ coats of arms etc.

The SINGLE-HEADED  🦅  EAGLE:

  Called the Aquila a (single-headed) eagle 🦅 made of silver, or bronze, with outstretched wings, was a Roman legion

standard ⚚, made prominent throughout the military by consul Gaius Marius ~100 BC.

A legionary that carried it was known as an aquilifer, the "eagle-bearer" and it represented the

Aëtos the Eagle of Jove (or Jupiter, the chief Roman deity and thus "Father of the Roman state"

- Zeus in the greek.*)

        The eagles held quasi-religious importance, to lose a standard (have it captured) was more than

shameful. (After the annihilation of 3 legions in the Teutoburg Forest, for example, the Romans spent

decades retaliating while also attempting to recover the 3 lost eagles.)

• In later HERALDIC TRADITION, the eagle's 𖤍 wings elevated, beak + talons prominent, became a symbol of predatory vigilance & territorial grasp.  But in the Roman tradition an Aquila symbolized Jupiter's favor (in battle) & a legion's unbreakable spirit.** 

The Aquila shows up in modern nations flags like Moldova🔍 in addition to evolving into

a dual or double-headed version later used by the Holy Roman Empire🔍 

* Beautiful human boy and childhood companion of Zeus, the king of the gods; while he was hiding in Crete from his father Cronus (who had devoured all of Zeus's siblings), Zeus's wife Hera turned Aëtos into an eagle, out of fear of how much Zeus loved him thus creating the Eagle of Zeus, the most prominent symbol of the god of thunder - and later became the Eagle of Jove when Zeus morphed to Jupiter/ Jove in the Roman cannon. He was also the eagle Zeus sent to claw-out Prometheus's liver, only for his liver to grow-back nightly and was later killed by Heracles/Hercules, during his 11th Labour.

** Later Biblical imagery reinforced this, with the eagle denoting renewal & exalted power [e.g., Exodus 19:4, where God bears Israel on eagles' wings.]