Note 189 — XXVIII.
Reading edition
Desprez, speaking of the palm as an emblem of victory, says (Comment. in Horat. Od. I. i. 5), "Palma verò signum victoriae passim apud omnes statuitur, ex Plutarcho, propterea quod ea est ejus natura ligni, ut urgentibus opprimentibusque minimè cedat. Unde est illud Alciati epigramma,—
'Nititur in pondus palma, et consurgit in altum: Quoque magis premitur, hoc magè tollit onus.'"
It is in the eighth book of his Symposia that Plutarch states this peculiar property of the palm to resist the oppression of any superincumbent weight, and to rise up against it, whence it was adopted as the symbol of victory. Cowley also alludes to it in his Davideis.
"Well did he know how palms by oppression speed Victorious, and the vctor's sacred meed."