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III The origins of the Welsh Dragon were undoubtedly the Roman
"draconi" standards of the cohorts, which were far more numerous
than the legions, particularly after the gradual withdrawal of
the latter. "... the people who were left behind when the
legions withdrew forever must most naturally have thought of the
Dragon as the symbol of that Roman civilisation to which they
belonged and which they were now defending against the ravages
of the barbarian invaders. It is generally agreed that
resistance to the Saxons was first organized by Romans, or
Romanized Britons, presumably on Roman lines ... For their
battle standard no emblem was more natural than the familiar
Dragon of the Roman cohort." "The Welsh, as a distinct people,
may be said to date from about the seventh century, when the
advance of the Saxons to the Bristol Channel an