Lab'arum

Lab'arum, the famous standard of the Roman emperor Constantine, designed to commemorate the miraculous vision of the cross in the sky, which is said to have appeared to him on his way to attack Maxentius, and to have been the moving cause of his conversion to Christianity. It was a long pike or lance, with a short transverse bar of wood attached near its extremity, so as to form something like a cross. On the point of the lance was a golden crown sparkling with gems, and in its centre the mysterious monogram of the cross and the initial letters of the name of Christ, the letters X and P—Greek for CH and R—being combined (see CROSS, Vol. III. p. 582). From the crossbeam depended a square purple banner, and surrounded by a rich border of gold embroidery. The cross was substituted for the eagle, formerly perched on the Roman standards, and there were sometimes other emblems of the Saviour. Between the crown and the cross were heads of the emperor and his family, and sometimes a figure of Christ woven in gold. The origin of the word is still uncertain, 'in spite,' says Gibbon, 'of the efforts of the critics, who have ineffectually tortured the Latin, Greek, Spanish, Celtic, Teutonic, Illyric, Armenian, &c. [and, he might have added, Basque] in search of an etymology.'