The evil eye. An account of this ancient and wide spread superstition

1/2 THE EVIL EYE CHAP.
We are told that the Honoriani Seniores (cavalry)
bore a white shield, in which a golden centre
{aureus unibilims) was surrounded by a yellow circle.
Secuda Flavia
I. Flavia Theodosiana. II. Felix Valen. Thbeoru. Costant Tkbeoru.
Petulantes iuniores.
Fig. 59.—Legiones Comitatenses IX. p. 33.
The Martiarii Seniores had two jackals rampant sup-
porting an orb with a Greek cross, surmounted by a
crescent. The Cornuti had two griffins' heads joined
on a pedestal, with the inevitable
Fig. 60.
Auxilia Palatina VI.
sun circle in the centre, thus pro-
viding a " difference " to distinguish
them from the Celtae, who
belonged to the Western Army.-^^
Long ages before the Roman
period to which these insignia
belong, Grecian heroes carried on
|their shields what we may fairly
'term "armorial bearings." The
earliest known pictures, such as the vase paint-
ings before referred to, show that the device
281 The popular notion regarding coats of arms is no doubt accurately
reflected by the leader-writer who penned the following: " Armorial bearings,
we may presume, were originally adopted to distinguish a military leader in
the throng of fighting men from a host of others similarly accoutred, and all
with their vizors down. They served, in short, as a sort of hieroglyphics,
invented in an unlettered age, before the capability of reading a more con-
ventional form of writing had become general" (^Standard, June 9, 1S94).
He will therefore perhaps be surprised to see how much like mediceval shields
were those of the Roman legions.