THE WAR WITH PORSENA.
From the time of the flight of the Tarquins, Rome was governed by two
consuls, who wore all the tokens of royalty except the crown. Tarquin
fled into Etruria, whence his grandfather had come, and thence tried to
obtain admission into Rome. The two young sons of Brutus and the nephews
of Collatinus were drawn into a plot for bringing them back again, and
on its discovery were brought before the two consuls. Their guilt was
proved, and their father sternly asked what they had to say in their
defence. They only wept, and so did Collatinus and many of the senators,
crying out, "Banish them, banish them." Brutus, however, as if unmoved,
bade the executioners do their office. The whole Senate shrieked to hear
a father thus condemn his own children, but he was resolute, and
actually looked on while the young men were first scourged and then
beheaded.
Collatinus put off the further judgment in hopes to save his nephews,
and Brutus told them that he had put them to death by his own power as a
father, but that he left the rest to the voice of the people, and they
were sent into banishment. Even Collatinus was thought to have acted
weakly, and was sent into exile--so determined were the Romans to have
no one among them who would not uphold their decrees to the utmost.
Tarquin advanced to the walls and cut down all the growing corn around
the Campus Martius and threw it into the Tiber; there it formed a heap
round which an island was afterwards formed. Brutus himself and his
cousin Aruns Tarquin soon after killed one another in single combat in a
battle outside the walls, and all the women of Rome mourned for him as
for a father.
Tarquin found a friend in the Etruscan king called Lars Porsena, who
brought an army to besiege Rome and restore him to the throne. He
advanced towards the gate called Janiculum upon the Tiber, and drove the
Romans out of the fort on the other side the river. The Romans then
retreated across the bridge, placing three men to guard it until all
should be gone over and it could be broken down.
[Illustration: BRUTUS CONDEMNING HIS SONS.]
There stood the brave three--Horatius, Lartius, and Herminius--guarding
the bridge while their fellow-citizens were fleeing across it, three men
against a whole army. At last the weapons of Lartius and Herminius were
broken down, and Horatius bade them hasten over the bridge while it
could still bear their weight. He himself fought on till he was wounded
in the thigh, and the last timbers of the bridge were falling into the
stream. Then spreading out his arms, he called upon Father Tiber to
receive him, leapt into the river and swam across amid a shower of
arrows, one of which put out his eye, and he was lame for life. A statue
of him "halting on his thigh" was set up in the temple of Vulcan, and he
was rewarded with as much land as one yoke of oxen could plough in a
day, and the 300,000 citizens of Rome each gave him a day's provision of
corn.
Porsena then blockaded the city, and when the Romans were nearly
starving he sent them word that he would give them food if they would
receive their old masters; but they made answer that hunger was better
than slavery, and still held out. In the midst of their distress, a
young man named Caius Mucius came and begged leave of the consuls to
cross the Tiber and go to attempt something to deliver his country. They
gave leave, and creeping through the Etruscan camp he came into the
king's tent just as Porsena was watching his troops pass by in full
order. One of his counsellors was sitting beside him so richly dressed
that Mucius did not know which was king, and leaping towards them, he
stabbed the counsellor to the heart. He was seized at once and dragged
before the king, who fiercely asked who he was, and what he meant by
such a crime.
The young man answered that his name was Caius Mucius, and that he was
ready to do and dare anything for Rome. In answer to threats of torture,
he quietly stretched out his right hand and thrust it into the flame
that burnt in a brazier close by, holding it there without a sign of
pain, while he bade Porsena see what a Roman thought of suffering.
Porsena was so struck that he at once gave the daring man his life, his
freedom, and even his dagger; and Mucius then told him that three
hundred youths like himself had sworn to have his life unless he left
Rome to her liberty. This was false, but both the lie and the murder
were for Rome's sake; they were both admired by the Romans, who held
that the welfare of their city was their very first duty. Mucius could
never use his right hand again, and was always called Scævola, or the
Left-handed, a name that went on to his family.
Porsena believed the story, and began to make peace. A truce was agreed
on, and ten Roman youths and as many girls were given up to the
Etruscans as hostages. While the conferences were going on, one of the
Roman girls named Clelia forgot her duty so much as to swim home across
the river with all her companions; but Valeria, the consul's daughter,
was received with all the anger that breach of trust deserved, and her
father mounted his horse at once to take the party back again. Just as
they reached the Etruscan camp, the Tarquin father and brothers, and a
whole troop of the enemy, fell on them. While the consul was fighting
against a terrible force, Valeria dashed on into the camp and called out
Porsena and his son. They, much grieved that the truce should have been
broken, drove back their own men, and were so angry with the Tarquins as
to give up their cause. He asked which of the girls had contrived the
escape, and when Clelia confessed it was herself, he made her a present
of a fine horse and its trappings, which she little deserved.
This Valerius was called Publicola, or the people's friend. He died a
year or two later, after so many victories that the Romans honored him
among their greatest heroes. Tarquin still continued to seek support
among the different Italian nations, and again attacked the Romans with
the help of the Latins. The chief battle was fought close to Lake
Regillus; Aulus Posthumius was the commander, but Marcus Valerius,
brother to Publicola, was general of the horse. He had vowed to build a
temple to Castor and Pollux if the Romans gained the victory; and in the
beginning of the fight, two glorious youths of god-like stature appeared
on horseback at the head of the Roman horse and fought for them. It was
a very hard-fought battle. Valerius was killed, but so was Titus
Tarquin, and the Latin force was entirely broken and routed. That same
evening the two youths rode into the Forum, their horses dripping with
sweat and their weapons bloody. They drew up and washed themselves at a
fountain near the temple of Vesta, and as the people crowded round they
told of the great victory, and while one man named Domitius doubted of
it, since the Lake Regillus was too far off for tidings to have come so
fast, one of them laid his hand on the doubter's beard and changed it
in a moment from black to copper color, so that he came to be called
Domitius Ahenobarbus, or Brazen-beard. Then they disappeared, and the
next morning Posthumius' messenger brought the news. The Romans had no
doubt that these were indeed the glorious twins, and built their temple,
as Valerius had vowed.
[Illustration: ROMAN ENSIGNS, STANDARDS, TRUMPETS ETC.]
Tarquin had lost all his sons, and died in wretched exile at Cumæ. And
here ends what is looked on as the legendary history of Rome, for though
most of these stories have dates, and some sound possible, there is so
much that is plainly untrue mixed up with them, that they can only be
looked on as the old stories which were handed down to account for the
Roman customs and copied by their historians.