CHAP. 3. (4.)—THE ACORN OAK. THE CIVIC CROWN.
It is with the leaves of this class of trees that our civic crown is made, the most glorious reward that can be bestowed on military valour, and, for this long time past, the emblem of the imperial2205 clemency; since the time, in fact, when, after the impiety of civil war, it was first deemed a meritorious action not to shed the blood of a fellow-citizen. Far inferior to this in rank are the mural2206 crown, the vallar,2207 and the golden2208 one, superior though they may be in the value of the material: inferior, too, in merit, is the rostrate2209 crown, though ennobled, in recent times more particularly, by two great names, those of M. Varro,2210 who was presented with it by Pompeius Magnus, for his great achievements in the Piratic War, and of M. Agrippa, on whom it was bestowed by Cæsar, at the end of the Sicilian War, which was also a war against pirates.
In former days the beaks2211 of vessels, fastened in front of the tribunal, graced the Forum, and seemed, as it were, a crown placed upon the head of the Roman people itself. In later times, however, they began to be polluted and trodden under foot amid the seditious movements of the tribunes, the public interest was sacrificed to private advantage, each citizen sought solely his own advancement, and everything looked upon as holy was abandoned to profanation—still, from amid all this, the Rostra2212 emerged once again, and passed from beneath the feet of the citizens to their heads. Augustus presented to Agrippa the rostrate crown, while he himself received the civic crown2213 at the hands of all mankind.