The garland is thus described in Paradin’s French,—
“La Courõne, apellee Ciuique, eſtoit dõnee par le Citoyẽ, au Citoyẽ qu’il auoit ſauué en guerre: en repreſentatiõ de vie ſauuee. Et eſtoit cete Courõne, tiſſue de fueilles, ou petis rameaus de Cheſne: pour autãt qu’au Cheſne, la vielle antiquité, ſouloit prẽdre ſa ſubſtãce, ſõ mãger, ou sa nourriture.”
i.e.—“The crown called Civic was given by the Citizen to the Citizen[[122]] whom he had saved in war; in testimony of life saved. And this Crown was an inweaving of leaves or small branches of Oak; inasmuch as from the Oak, old antiquity was accustomed to take its subsistence, its food, or its nourishment.”
“Among the rewards” for the Roman soldiery, remarks Eschenburg (Manual of Classical Literature, p. 274), “golden or gilded crowns were particularly common; as, the corona castrensis, or vallaris, to him who first entered the enemy’s entrenchments; corona muralis, to him who first scaled the enemy’s walls; and corona navalis, for seizing a vessel of the enemy in a sea-fight; also wreaths and crowns formed of leaves and blossoms; as the corona civica, of oak leaves, conferred for freeing a citizen from death or captivity at the hands of the enemy; the corona obsidionalis, of grass, for delivering a besieged city; and the corona triumphalis, of laurel, worn by a triumphing general.”
Shakespeare’s acquaintance with these Roman customs we find, where we should expect it to be, in the Coriolanus and in the Julius Cæsar. Let us take the instances; first, from the Coriolanus, act i. sc. 9, l. 58, vol. vi. p. 304; act i. sc. 3, l. 7, p. 287; act ii. sc. 2, l. 84, p. 323; and act ii. sc. 1, l. 109, p. 312. Cominius thanks the gods that “our Rome hath such a soldier” as Caius Marcius, and declares (act i. sc. 9, l. 58),—
“Therefore, be it known,
As to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius
Wears this war’s garland: in token of the which,
My noble steed, known to the camp, I give him,