Note 554 — Chapter XIII · THE KINGS OF ROME AND ALBA

Tertullian, De corona militis, 13, “Coronant et publicos ordines laureis publicae causae magistratus vero insuper aureis. Praeferuntur etiam illis Hetruscae. Hoc vocabulum est coronarum, quas gemmis et foliis ex auro quercinis ob Jovem insignes ad deducendas thensas cum palmatis togis sumunt.” The thensae were the sacred cars in which the images of the gods were carried at the procession of the Circensian games (see W. Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 3rd Ed., s.v.). That the Etruscan crown described by Tertullian was the golden crown held by a slave over the head of a general on his triumph may be inferred from Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 11, “Vulgoque sic triumphabant, et cum corona ex auro Etrusca sustineretur a tergo, anulus tamen in digito ferreus erat aeque triumphantis et servi fortasse coronam sustinentis.” Compare Zonaras, Annal. vii. 21; Juvenal, x. 38 sqq. Mommsen says that the triumphal golden crown was made in the shape of laurel leaves (Römisches Staatsrecht, i. 3rd Ed., 427); but none of the ancient authors cited by him appears to affirm this, with the exception of Aulus Gellius (v. 6. 5-7, “Triumphales coronae sunt aureae, quae imperatoribus ob honorem triumphi mittuntur. Id vulgo dicitur aurum coronarium. Haec antiquitus e lauru erant, post fieri ex aura coeptae”). Gellius may have confused the wreath of real laurel which the general wore on his head (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxiii. 127, 130, 137) with the golden crown which was held over him by a slave. The two crowns are clearly distinguished by Zonaras (l.c.), though he does not describe the shape of the golden crown. Thus there is no good ground for rejecting the express testimony of Tertullian that the golden crown was shaped like oak-leaves. This seems to have been Mommsen’s own earlier opinion, since he mentions “a chaplet of oaken leaves in gold” as part of the insignia of the Roman kings (Roman History, London, 1894, i. 83).