All these were more or less conventional figures of the Bird of Jove in its natural form, but a heraldic figure with two heads turned, Janus like, in opposite directions, was soon to be revived in the region where, as we have seen, it had been familiar 2000 years before as the national emblem of the Eastern, or Byzantine, Empire, which for hundreds of years contested with Rome, both the political and the ecclesiastical hegemony of the world. Just when this symbol came into favor at Constantinople is unknown, but one authority says it did not appear before the tenth century. At that time the Eastern emperors were recovering lost provinces and extending their rule until it included all the civilized part of western Asia, Greece, Bulgaria, southern Italy, and much of the islands and shores of the Mediterranean; and they asserted religious supremacy, at least, over the rival European empire erected on Charlemagne’s foundation. It would seem natural that at this prosperous period, when Byzantium proudly claimed, if she did not really possess all “the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome,” such a double-headed device might be adopted, signifying that she had united the western power with her own. The evidence of this motive is doubtful, however, for it is not until a much later date that the figure begins to be seen on coins and textiles, first at Trebizond, particularly in connection with the emperor Theodore Lascaris, who reigned at the beginning of the 13th century. Dalton[[25]] suggests plausibly that this symbol may have become Byzantine through the circumstance that this Lascaris had previously been despot of Nicomedia, in which province Bogaz-Keui and other Hittite remains were situated, and where the bicephalous carvings heretofore alluded to are still to be seen on rockfaces and ruins, always in association with royalty.
It is very attractive to think that this form of eagle was chosen, as has been suggested, to express the fact that Constantinople was now lord over both halves, East and West, into which Diocletian had divided the original empire of Rome. Whether this idea was behind the choice I do not know, but at any rate the two-faced eagle became latterly the acknowledged ensign of imperial Byzantium, and as such was introduced into European royal heraldry, whether or not by means of the returning Crusaders, as commonly stated, remains obscure.
In the 15th century what was left of the Holy Roman Empire became the heritage of the Austrian house of Hapsburg which had succeeded the German Hohenstauffens; and to Sigismund, head of the house in that century, is ascribed the design in the Austrian arms of the two-headed eagle, looking right and left, as if to signify boastfully that he ruled both East and West. These were relative and indefinite domains, but as he had, by his crowning at Rome, received at least nominal sovereignty over the fragmentary remains in Greece of the ancient Eastern Empire, he was perhaps justified in adopting the Byzantine ensign as “captured colors”; but a rival was soon to present a stronger claim to these fragments and their badge.
In this same period, that is in the middle of the 15th century, Ivan the Great of Russia was striving with high purpose and despotic strength to bring back under one sway the divided house of Muscovy, together with whatever else he could obtain. To further this purpose he married, in 1472, Sophia Paleologos, niece of the last Byzantine emperor, getting with her Greece and hence a barren title to the throne of the Eastern empire—a barren title because its former domain was now over-run by the Turks, but very important in the fact that it included the headship of the Greek, or Orthodox, Church. From this time Russia as well as Austria has borne a two-faced eagle on its escutcheon; and, although both birds are from the same political nest, the feeling between them has been far from brotherly.
It may be remarked here, parenthetically, that in Egypt the cult of the kingly eagle never flourished, for the griffon vulture, “far-sighted, ubiquitous, importunate,” became the grim emblem of royal power; and a smaller vulture (Neophron percnopterus) is called Pharaoh’s chicken to this day by the fellaheen. By “eagle” in Semitic (Biblical) legends is usually meant the lammergeier.
Prussia had kept a single-headed eagle as her cognizance in remembrance of her previous “Roman” greatness; and it was retained by the German Empire when that was created by Bismarck half a century and more ago. From it the Kaiser designated the two German military orders—the Black Eagle and the superior Red Eagle; and Russia and Serbia have each instituted an order called White Eagle. The traditional eagle of Poland is represented as white on a black ground. It was displayed during the period of subjection following the partition of the country in 1795, with closed wings, but now, since 1919, it spreads its pinions wide in the pride of freedom.
In the years between 1914 and 1919 an allied party of hunters, enraged by their depredations, went gunning for these birds of prey, killed most of them and sorely wounded the rest!
Although several species of real eagles inhabit the Mediterranean region and those parts of Europe and Asia where these nations lived, and warred, and passed away, and are somewhat confused in the mass of myth and tradition relating to them, the one chosen by Rome was the golden eagle, so called because of the golden gloss that suffuses the feathers of the neck in mature birds. Now we have this species of sea-eagle in the United States, and it has been from time immemorial the honored War-eagle of the native redmen. If it was needful at our political birth to put any sort of animal on our seal, and the choice was narrowed down to an eagle, it would have been far more appropriate to have chosen the golden rather than the white-headed or “bald” species—first because the golden is in habits and appearance far the nobler of the two, and, second, because of the supreme regard in which it was held by all the North American aborigines, who paid no respect whatever to the bald eagle. On the other hand, the white head and neck of our accepted species gives a distinctive mark to our coat of arms. The history of the adoption of this symbol of the United States of America is worth a paragraph.
On July 4, 1776, on the afternoon following the morning hours in which the Congress in Philadelphia had performed the momentous duty of proclaiming the independence of the United States, it dropped down to the consideration of its cockade, and appointed a committee to prepare a device for a Great Seal and coat-of-arms for the new republic.[[26]] Desiring to avoid European models, yet clinging to the traditions of art in these matters, the committee devised and offered in succession several complicated allegorical designs that were promptly and wisely rejected by the Congress. Finally, in 1782, the matter was left in the hands of Charles Thomson, Secretary of the Congress, and he at once consulted with William Barton of Philadelphia. They abandoned allegory and designed an eagle “displayed proper,” that is, with a shield on its breast. Mr. Barton, who was learned in heraldry, explained that “the escutcheon being placed on the breast of the eagle displayed is a very ancient mode of bearing, and is truly imperial.” To avoid an “imperial” effect, however, a concession was made to local prejudice by indicating plainly that the bird itself was the American bald eagle—unless, indeed, that happened to be the only one Barton knew!
This design was finally adopted in 1782. Since then the Great Seal has been re-cut several times, so that the bird in its imprint is now a far more reputable fowl than at first—looks less as if it were nailed on a barn-door pour encourager les autres. In its right claw it holds a spray of ripe olives as an emblem of a peaceful disposition, and in its left an indication of resolution to enforce peace, in the form of American thunderbolts—the redman’s arrows.