Tertullian, On the Crown 12

Let us assume that military service is permitted up to the point of the crown. But first, let us speak about the crown. That laurel is sacred to Apollo or to Liber: to Apollo, as the god of projectiles; to Liber, as the god of triumphs. Claudius confirms this when he says that soldiers are customarily wreathed with myrtle. Myrtle belongs to Venus, the mother of Aeneas, not laurel; it also belongs to the loved ones of Mars, through Ilium and Romulus, to the Romans. But I do not believe Venus sides with the Romans alongside Mars in a context where there is the pain of skin. When the olive, too, is used to crown military service, it becomes idolatry directed at Minerva, goddess of arms equally, but also of peace—once peace was established with Neptune, she was crowned from this tree. In these things, the superstition of the military garland is both polluted and polluting, and now all things will be polluted, causes included. Look at the annual declaration of vows—what does it look like? The first part occurs at the *principia*, the second at the *capitolia*. Now take the setting and the words: "Then to you, Jupiter, with a horned ox decorated with gold, we vow to be." Whose voice is that sentence? Unquestionably, the voice of negation. Even if the Christian keeps his mouth silent there, his crowned head answers. That same laurel is openly proclaimed in the distribution of donatives—plainly, not a gratuitous idolatry, but one selling Christ to some for gold, just as Judas did for silver. This will amount to: "You cannot serve God and mammon" (Luke 16:13)—to hand yourself over to mammon and stand apart from God? This will amount to: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21)—not to render a man to God, and to withhold a denarius from Caesar? Is the triumphal laurel constructed from leaves or from corpses? Is it adorned with blades or with busts? Is it anointed with perfumes or with the tears of wives and mothers? Perhaps even of some Christians: for Christ is also among the barbarians. He who bears this cause on his head—has he not also fought against it? There is also another kind of military service: that of royal households. For the camp largesses are called *munificentiae*, and they themselves belong to the Caesarean solemnities. But you, too, are a soldier and a servant of another; and if you serve two—God and Caesar—then certainly not Caesar, when you owe yourself to God, even in common matters, I believe, to the more important one.