{"id":93854,"date":"2021-08-06T07:25:03","date_gmt":"2021-08-06T05:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/?post_type=ciekawostki&#038;p=93854"},"modified":"2021-08-06T07:29:48","modified_gmt":"2021-08-06T05:29:48","slug":"oak-in-the-culture-of-the-ancient-romans","status":"publish","type":"ciekawostki","link":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/curiosities\/oak-in-the-culture-of-the-ancient-romans\/","title":{"rendered":"Oak in the culture of the ancient Romans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On the occasion of the ongoing Olympic Games, it is worth mentioning that the plant that is directly associated with the everyday life of ancient Romans is the noble laurel (<em>Laurus nobilis<\/em>). The image of the winner of the Olympics is a figure of a man with a proudly raised head, on which there is a laurel wreath, decorated with laurel leaves. What if our image was not true and instead of the characteristic lanceolate leaves we would see pinnate oak leaves adorning his temple? <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Oak is a common plant throughout Europe and Asia. It occupies very diverse habitats &#8211; from semi-deserts to subtropical forests. From antiquity, the oak was considered a sacred tree, the <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-constitution\/roman-kingdom\/roman-kings\/\">king<\/a> of plants on earth and the seat of the supreme deities &#8211; Zeus and <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-religion\/gods-of-ancient-rome\/list-of-roman-gods\/jupiter\/\">Jupiter<\/a>. Already among the Slavs, oaks were treated as a kind of temples, sheltered by statues of idols &#8211; why would it be different with the Romans?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-geography\/roman-cities\/rome-eternal-city\/\">Rome<\/a> handed out the most deserving <em>corona civica<\/em>, i.e. a wreath of oak leaves, which is also one of the highest military decorations. Moreover, on many ancient coins the images of <a href=\"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/roman-constitution\/roman-empire\/roman-emperors\/\">emperors<\/a> are decorated with characteristic oak leaves, and not bay leaves, as is commonly believed.<\/p>\n<p>These trees were also a valuable raw material not only for making tools or construction sites, but also provided acorns for feed for pigs. Oak staves could be a raw material and the subject of export trade &#8211; after all, oak was commonly used in making wine barrels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":93833,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"kategorie_ciekawostek":[77],"class_list":["post-93854","ciekawostki","type-ciekawostki","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","kategorie_ciekawostek-unknown-facts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ciekawostki\/93854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ciekawostki"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/ciekawostki"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ciekawostki\/93854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"kategorie_ciekawostek","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imperiumromanum.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kategorie_ciekawostek?post=93854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}