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| This article is part of the series on: Military of ancient Rome (portal) 753 BC – AD 476 |
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| Structural history | |
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| Roman army (unit types and ranks, legions, auxiliaries, generals) | |
| Roman navy (fleets, admirals) | |
| Campaign history | |
| Lists of wars and battles | |
| Decorations and punishments | |
| Technological history | |
| Military engineering (castra, siege engines, arches, roads) | |
| Personal equipment | |
| Political history | |
| Strategy and tactics | |
| Infantry tactics | |
| Frontiers and fortifications (limes, Hadrian's Wall) | |
In Hellenistic culture, a mural crown identified the goddess Tyche, the embodiment of the fortune of a city, familiar to Romans as Fortuna. The high cylindrical polos of Cybele too could be rendered as a mural crown in Hellenistic times, specifically designating the Mother Goddess as patron of a city.[1]
The mural crown became an ancient Roman military decoration. The Roman corona muralis (Latin: "walled crown") was a golden crown, or a circle of gold intended to resemble a battlement, bestowed upon the soldier who first climbed the wall of a besieged city or fortress to successfully place the standard of the attacking army upon it.[2] The Roman mural crown was made of gold, and decorated with turrets[3], as is the heraldic version. As it was among the highest order of military decorations, it was not awarded to a claimant until after a strict investigation [4]. The rostrata mural crown, composed of the rostra indicative of captured ships, was assigned as naval prize to the first in a boarding party, similar to the naval crown.
The Graeco-Roman goddess Roma's attributes on Greek coinage usually include her mural crown, signifying Rome's status as a loyal protector of Hellenic city-states.[5]
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Heraldry
The Roman military decoration came to be employed in European heraldry, where the term is used to denote a crown modeled after the walls of a castle. In recent times, mural crowns have been used in opposition to royal crowns; they are typical of Italian medieval and modern Communes. A mural crowned lady, Italia Turrita, is a symbol of Italy. In Italy, communes have a mural crown on their coat of arms, golden and with five towers for cities, silver and nine-towered for the others; also some provinces and military corps use it. The coat of arms of the Second Spanish Republic had a mural crown. Most Portuguese (and Brazilian) municipal coats of arms contain a mural crown, with three towers in modern usage signifying a village, four towers representing a town, and five towers standing for a city. Similarly, the Romanian municipal coats of arms contain a mural crown, with one or three towers for villages and communes, five and seven towers for towns and municipalities.
After the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I, the single-headed eagle of the coat of arms of Republic of Austria began to wear a mural crown in the place of the former royal Austrian and Hungarian crowns that adorned the double-headed eagle of former coat of arms.
Examples for the use in heraldry
 The coat of arms of Chernivtsi, Ukraine (city, oblast capital) |
Media related to Category:Mural crowns in heraldry at Wikimedia Commons
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mural crowns |
See also
References
- ^ The mural crown as an indicator of the personification of a city was thoroughly explored by F. Allégre, Étude sur la déesse grecque Tyché (Paris 1889), pp 187-92.
- ^ Aulus Gellius, Noctes Attici, V.6.4; Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, XXVI.48
- ^ muri pinnis according to Aulus Gellius
- ^ Livy. l.c.; cf. Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Augustus 25.
- ^ Mellor, R., "The Goddess Roma" in Haase, W., Temporini, H., (eds), Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt, de Gruyter, 1991, pp 60-63.
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