392 PLINY'S NATUKAL HISTOBY. [Book XXII. 



CHAP. 4. (3.) THE GRASS CROWN : 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. 17 The crowns 18 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 excepjt 

 by the acclamation of the whole army, arid 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, praj r , 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 of green grass, 19 

 . 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 surrendered 20 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 know- 

 ledge, still exists among the nations of Germany. 21 



17 " Corona graminea." 



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



19 Sometimes also, weeds, or wild flowers. 



20 See Servius on the 2Eneid. B. viii. 1. 128. 



21 No doubt, the old English custom of delivering seisin by presenting 

 a turf, originated in this. 



