Animals in signa Militaria
Guide animals from the ver sacrum and their legends may explain the use of animal insignia by the Roman army. Gaius Marius was the first to adopt the eagle in all the signa militaria; previously the eagle had been the first and highest of the signa. Others in use were the wolf, the Minotaur, the horse and the boar. Andreas Alföldi has linked each animal with a Roman god, starting with the eagle and Jupiter and ending with the boar of Quirinus: thus the wolf would be related to Mars, the Minotaur to Liber and the horse to Neptune.
Dumézil emphasizes the affinty of Indo-Iranian human and warrior gods with animal forms: among the Iranic god of victory V(e)r(e)thragna 's incarnations, seven are of animal form, including the bull, horse, boar and hawk, each of which is associated at one time or another with a ver sacrum and Roman army insignia.
On the recto of coins from Campania appears a human character bearing over his head that of a boar, and on the verso the word ROMA. German scholar C. Koch interprets this character as god Quirinus, since he identifies the boar, aper, as the animal symbol of the god. Dumézil remarks that the boar is the animal symbolizing Vane, the Freyr of Scandinavian mythology.
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