394 PLINY'S NATURAL HISTOKIT. [Book XXII. 



CHAP. 6. (6.) THE ONLY CENTURIOX THAT HAS BEEN THUS 



HONOURED. 



In addition to the persons already mentioned, the honour 

 of this crown has been awarded to M. Calpurnius Flamma, 29 

 then a military tribune in Sicily ; but up to the present time 

 it has been given to a single centurion only, Cneius Petreius 

 Atinas, during the war with the Cimbri. This soldier, while 

 acting as primipilus 29 under Catulus, on finding all retreat for 

 his legion cut off by the enemy, harangued the troops, and 

 after slaying his tribune who hesitated to cut a way through the 

 encampment of the enemy, brought away the legion in safety. 

 I find it stated also by some authors, that, in addition to this 

 honour, this same Petreius, clad in the praetexta, offered sacri- 

 fice at the altar, to the sound of the pipe, 30 in presence of the 

 then consuls, 31 Marius and Catulus. 



The Dictator Sylla has also stated in his memoirs, that when 

 legatus in the Marsic War he was presented with this crown 

 by the army, at Nola ; an event w hich he caused to be com- 

 memorated in a painting at his Tusculan villa, which after- 

 wards became the property of Cicero. If there is any truth 

 in this statement, I can only say that it renders his memory 

 all the more execrable, and that, by his proscriptions, with his 

 own hand he tore this crown from his brow, for few indeed 

 were the citizens whom he thus preserved, in comparison with 

 those he slaughtered at a later period. And let him even add 

 to this high honour his proud surname of " Felix," 32 if he will ; 

 all the glories of this crown he surrendered to Sertorius, from 

 the moment that he put his proscribed fellow- citizens in a 

 stage of siege throughout the whole world. 



Yarro, too, relates that Scipio -ZErnilianus was awarded the 

 obsidional crown in Africa, under the consul Manilius, 33 for the 

 preservation of three cohorts, by bringing as many to their 

 rescue ; an event commemorated by an inscription upon the 

 base of the statue erected in honour of him by the now deified 

 Emperor Augustus, in the Forum which bears his name. Au- 



28 See Livy, B. xxii. 



29 The primipilus was the first centurion of the first maniple of the 

 triarii ; also called " primus centurionum." 



so Ad tibicinem." 31 A.U.C. 652. 



33 The " Fortunate/' 33 A.U.C. 605. 



