Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
But let us speak first about the crown itself. That laurel is sacred to Apollo or to Liber — to the former as god of weapons, to the latter as god of triumphs. So Claudius teaches, when he also says that soldiers used to be crowned with myrtle: for myrtle belongs to Venus, mother of the Aeneadae, and thus a lover of Mars too, and, through Ilia and the Romuli, Roman. But I do not for my part believe Venus is Roman on this side, in league with Mars — that is a lover's grievance, not a claim of mine. When military service is also crowned with olive, the idolatry belongs to Minerva, likewise a goddess of arms, but also crowned with that tree for the peace struck with Neptune. In all these the superstition of the military wreath lies hidden, polluted everywhere and polluting everything. And it is already polluted, too, by its occasions. Consider the annual declaration of vows: what does it look like? First at the standards, then on the Capitol. Take note, after the places, of the words too: "Then to you, Jupiter, we vow that there shall be an ox with gilded horns." Whose utterance is that? Certainly one of denial. Even if the Christian is silent there in speech, crowned on the head he has already given his answer. That same laurel is proclaimed too in the distribution of the donative. Clearly this is no cost-free idolatry, selling Christ for a few gold coins, as Judas did for silver ones. Will this be "You cannot serve God and mammon" — handing your hand over to mammon and standing apart from God? Will this be "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" — and yet not rendering the man to God while stripping the coin from Caesar? Is the triumphal laurel woven from foliage, or built up out of the slain? Is it trimmed out with ribbons, or with funeral pyres? Is it scented with perfume, or steeped in the weeping of wives and of mothers? Perhaps even the tears of some Christians — for Christ is found even among the barbarians. Whoever wears this crown upon his head, has he not, by that very fact, fought too? There is also another kind of military service, that of the royal households — for these too are called "of the camp," and they too pay their dues to the solemn festivities of the Caesars. But you too, in the same way, are a soldier and a servant of another — and if of two, of God and of Caesar, then in that moment you are surely not Caesar's, seeing that it is God to whom you owe your whole self — even, I would say, in the matters the two share, since God's claim is the greater one.