Quaestiones Romanae

Plutarch

Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. IV. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1936 (printing).

Why do they give a chaplet of oak leaves to the man who has saved the life of a citizen in time of war?[*](Cf.Life of Coriolanus, chap. iii. (214 e-f); Pliny, Natural History, xvi. 4 (11-14); Polybius, vi. 39. 6; Aulus Gellius, v. 6.)

Is it because it is easy to find an abundance of oak leaves everywhere on a campaign?

Or is it because the chaplet is sacred to Jupiter and Juno, whom they regard as guardians of the city?

Or is the custom an ancient inheritance from the Arcadians, who have a certain kinship with the oak? For they are thought to have been the first men sprung from the earth, even as the oak was the first plant.

Why do they make most use of vultures in augury?

Is it because twelve vultures appeared to Romulus at the time of the founding of Rome? Or is it because this is the least frequent and familiar of birds? For it is not easy to find a vulture’s nest, but these birds suddenly swoop down from afar; wherefore the sight of them is portentous.

Or did they learn this also from Hercules? If Herodorus[*](Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. ii. p. 31; Cf.Life of Romulus, ix. (23 a-b); Pliny, Natural History, x. 6 (19); Aelian, De Natura Animalium, ii. 46.) tells the truth, Hercules delighted in the appearance of vultures beyond that of all other birds at the beginning of any undertaking, since he believed that the vulture was the most righteous of all flesh-eating creatures: for, in the first place, it touches no living thing, nor does it kill any animate creature, as do eagles and hawks and the birds that fly by night: but it lives upon that which has been killed in some other way. Then again, even of these

it leaves its own kind untouched: for no one has ever seen a vulture feeding on a bird, as eagles and hawks do, pursuing and striking their own kind particularly. And yet, as Aeschylus[*](Suppliants, 226.) says,

How can a bird that feeds on birds be pure?

And we may say that it is the most harmless of birds to men, since it neither destroys any fruit or plant nor injures any domesticated animal. But if, as the Egyptians fable, the whole species is female, and they conceive by receiving the breath of the East Wind, even as the trees do by receiving the West Wind, then it is credible that the signs from them are altogether unwavering and certain. But in the case of the other birds, their excitements in the mating season, as well as their abductions, retreats, and pursuits, have much that is disturbing and unsteady.