BOOK XV. XXXIX. 132-XL. 135 



call it the Pelasgian laurel, others tlie leafy laurel, 

 others Alexander's crown. This also is a bushy shrub, 

 with a thicker and softer leaf than the ordinary 

 laurel, which leaves a burning taste in the moulh; 

 the bcrries are a blackish red. The older writers 

 noted that there was no variety of laurel that grew 

 in Corsica ; but it has now been introduced there 

 with successful results. 



XL. Thehiurelitself isabringerofpeace,inasmuch Laurei 

 as to hold out a branch of it even between enemy tokm^Sf'^^ 

 armies is a token of a cessation of hostihties. With ^o/'^* 

 the Romans especially it is used as a harbinger of re- lictory. 

 joicing and of victory, accompanying despatches and 

 decorating the spears and javehns of the soldiery and 

 adorning the generals' rods of ofiice. From this tree 

 a braneh is deposited in the lap of Jupiter the All-good 

 and AU-great whenever a fresh victory has brought 

 rejoicing, and this is not because the laurel is con- 

 tinually green, nor yet because it is an emblem of 

 peace, as the ohve is to be preferred to it in both 

 respects, but because it flourishes in the greatest 

 beauty on Mount Parnassus and consequently is 

 thought to be also dear to Apollo, to whose shrine even 

 the kings of Rome at that early date were in the 

 custom of sending gifts and asking for oracles in 

 return, as is evidenced by the case of Brutus ; 

 another reason also is perhaps to supply a token, be- 

 cause it was there that Brutus won freedom for the 

 people by kissing the famous plot of earth that bore 

 the laurel, at the direction of the oracular utterance ^ ; 

 and another possible reason is that the laurel alone 

 of all the shrubs planted by rnan and received into our 

 houses is never struck by hghtning. I personally am 

 inchned to beheve that it is for these reasons that the 



379 



