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CHAP. 4. (3.)—THE GRASS GROWN: HOW RARELY IT HAS BEEN AWARDED.

Of all the crowns with which, in the days of its majesty, the all-sovereign people, the ruler of the earth, recompensed the valour of its citizens, there was none attended with higher glory than the crown of grass.1 The crowns2 bedecked with gems of gold, the vallar, mural, rostrate, civic, and triumphal crowns, were, all of them, inferior to this: great, indeed, was the difference between them, and far in the background were they thrown by it. As to all the rest, a single individual could confer them, a general or commander on his soldiers for instance, or, as on some occasions, on his colleague: the senate, too, exempt from the cares and anxieties of war, and the people in the enjoyment of repose, could award them, together with the honours of a triumph.

(4.) But as for the crown of grass, it was never conferred except at a crisis of extreme desperation, never voted except by the acclamation of the whole army, and never to any one but to him who had been its preserver. Other crowns were awarded by the generals to the soldiers, this alone by the soldiers, and to the general. This crown is known also as the "obsidional" crown, from the circumstance of a beleaguered army being delivered, and so preserved from fearful disaster. If we are to regard as a glorious and a hallowed reward the civic crown, presented for preserving the life of a single citizen, and him, perhaps, of the very humblest rank, what, pray, ought to be thought of a whole army being saved, and indebted for its preservation to the valour of a single individual?

The crown thus presented was made green grass,3 gathered on the spot where the troops so rescued had been beleaguered. Indeed, in early times, it was the usual token of victory for the vanquished to present to the conqueror a handful of grass; signifying thereby that they surrendered4 their na- tive soil, the land that had nurtured them, and the very right even there to be interred—a usage which, to my own knowledge, still exists among the nations of Germany.5

1 "Corona graminea."

2 For a description of these various crowns, see B. xvi. c. 3.

3 Sometimes also, weeds, or wild flowers.

4 See Servius on the Æneid. B. viii. 1. 128.

5 No doubt, the old English custom of delivering seisin by presenting a turf, originated in this.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

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