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.[2468] The crowns[2469] 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 of green grass,[2470] 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[2471] their native 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.[2472]
CHAP. 5. (5.)—THE ONLY PERSONS THAT HAVE BEEN PRESENTED WITH THIS CROWN.
L. Siccius Dentatus[2473] was presented with this crown but once, though he gained as many as fourteen civic crowns, and fought one hundred and twenty battles, in all of which he was victorious—so rarely is it that an army has to thank a single individual only for its preservation! Some generals, however, have been presented with more than one of these crowns, P. Decius Mus,[2474] the military tribune, for example, who received one from his own army, and another from the troops which he had rescued[2475] when surrounded. He testified by an act of devoutness in what high esteem he held such an honour as this, for, adorned with these insignia, he sacrificed a white ox to Mars, together with one hundred red oxen, which had been presented to him by the beleaguered troops as the recompense of his valour: it was this same Decius, who afterwards, when consul, with Imperiosus[2476] for his colleague, devoted his life to secure victory to his fellow-citizens.
This crown was presented also by the senate and people of Rome—a distinction than which I know of nothing in existence more glorious—to that same Fabius[2477] who restored the fortunes of Rome by avoiding a battle; not, however, on the occasion when he preserved the master of the horse[2478] and his army; for then it was deemed preferable by those who were indebted to him for their preservation to present him with a crown under a new title, that of “father.” The crown of grass was, however, awarded to him, with that unanimity which I have mentioned, after Hannibal had been expelled from Italy; being the only crown, in fact, that has hitherto been placed upon the head of a citizen by the hands of the state itself, and, another remarkable distinction, the only one that has ever been conferred by the whole of Italy united.