Mural crown: First man over the walls during a siege of a fortified settlement.
Grass grown: Rarest and most prestigious award in Rome’s military history, awarded to a man who single handed-idly saved the army through his actions and could only be made/given by soldiers, not commanders
In: 74
The same way we do modern awards like the congressional medal of honor, or bronze/ silver stars. Someone that stepped up in the face of immanent danger to go above and beyond the call of duty. These were then, as they are now, witnessed by brothers in arms, and reported up the chain of command.
The rarest of such awards in modern times is actually a scarf. During the Boer War, Queen Victoria and her ladies in waiting would knit scarves. When the idea was broached about rewarding non-officers for their heroism “above and beyond”, the scarves knitted by the Queen were sent to the men so honored. Very quickly, the award was to become a medal (the Victoria Cross), and the scarves have become the rarest of military honoraria. There is one on display in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa Canada. It is a simple piece, but the history is quite unique.
More here . . .
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Scarf#:~:text=The%20Queen’s%20Scarf%20was%20awarded,Cornwall%2C%20and%20presented%20to%20soldiers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Scarf#:~:text=The%20Queen’s%20Scarf%20was%20awarded,Cornwall%2C%20and%20presented%20to%20soldiers).
I imagine a huge amount of people validating the account would do, and taking into account said witnesses reputation.
Eye witnesses and their word is basically all we have until around the enlightenment when people started getting really analytical about such things. Even then warfare is tumultuous. The most successful sniper in history (WWII) had a dedicated person that just followed them around and verified their kills.
You don’t really need proof as such, if you have enough troops saying a heroic action happened, that’s enough. Conversely, if nobody saw a heroic act, did it really happen?
The notion that objective truth matters and things need to be proved or disproved in absolute, that’s a characteristic of modern western culture, not of ancient Rome, or ancient anywhere really, “they say” was all that mattered.
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