How Brave Horatius Kept The Bridge

The banished King Tarquin did not lightly yield his realm. He roused the

neighboring cities against Rome and fought fiercely for his throne. Soon

after he was exiled from Rome he sent messengers there for his goods.

These the senate decreed should be given him. But his messengers had

more secret work to do. They formed a plot with many of the young nobles

to bring back the king, and among these traitors were Titus and

iberius, the sons of Brutus.



A slave overheard the conspirators and betrayed them to the consuls, and

they were seized and brought to the judgment-seat in the Forum. Here

Brutus, sitting in judgment, beheld his two sons among the culprits. He

loved them, but he loved justice more, and though he grieved deeply

inwardly, his face was grave and stern as he gave judgment that the law

must take its course. So the sons of this stern old Roman were scourged

with rods before his eyes, and then, with the other conspirators, were

beheaded by the lictors, while he looked steadily on, never turning his

eyes from the dreadful sight. But men could see that his heart bled for

his sons.



Soon afterwards Tarquin led an army of Etruscans against Rome, and the

two consuls marched against them at the head of the Roman army. In the

battle that followed Brutus met Aruns, the king's son, in advance of the

lines of battle. Aruns, seeing Brutus dressed in royal robes and

attended by the lictors of a king, was filled with anger, and levelled

his spear and spurred his horse against him. Brutus met him in

mid-career with levelled spear. Both were run through, and together fell

dead upon the field.



The day ended with neither party victors. But during the night a

woodland deity was heard speaking from a forest near by. "One man more

has fallen of the Etruscans than of the Romans," it said; "the Romans

are to conquer." This strange oracle ended the war. It was a reason,

surely, for which war was never ended before or since. The Etruscans,

affrighted, marched hastily home; while the Romans carried home their

slain patriot, for whom their women mourned a whole year, in honor of

his noble service in avenging Lucretia.



The banished king still craved his lost kingdom, and made other efforts

to regain it. Having failed in his first attempt, he went to another

city, named Clusium, in the distant part of Etruria, and here besought

Lars Porsenna, the king of that city, to aid him recover his throne.

Lars Porsenna, with a fellow-feeling for his dethroned brother king,

raised a large army and marched with Tarquin and his fellow-exiles

against defiant Rome.



The Romans now awaited him at home, and the two armies met on the hill

called Janiculum, beyond the river from the city. Here came the crash of

battle, but the men of Clusium proved the stronger, and after a sharp

struggle the Romans gave way and were driven pell-mell down the hill and

across the bridge which spanned the Tiber at this point. This was a

wooden bridge on which the Romans set great store, as it was their only

means of crossing the stream. But it now was likely to serve as a means

of the loss of their city. Their flying army was pouring in panic across

it, with the Etruscans in hot pursuit, seeking strenuously to win the

bridge.



The bridge must be speedily destroyed or the city would be lost, but it

seemed too late for this; unless the enemy could in some way be kept

back till the bridge was cut down, Tarquin and his allies would be in

the streets of Rome.



At this juncture a brave and stalwart son of Rome, Horatius Cocles by

name, stepped forward and offered his life in his city's defence. "Cut

away with all haste," he said; "I will keep the bridge until it falls."

Two others, Spurius Lartius and Titus Herminius, sprang to his side, and

the three, fully armed and stout of heart, ranged themselves across the

narrow causeway, while behind them the axes of the Romans played

ringingly upon the supports of the bridge.



On came the Etruscans in force. But the bridge was so narrow that only a

few could advance at once, and these found in the way the sharp spears

and keen-edged blades of the patriot three. Down went the leading

Etruscans, and others pressed on, only to fall, till the defenders of

the bridge had a bulwark of the slain in their front.






And now the bridge creaked and groaned as the axes kept up their lively

play, the ring of steel finding its chorus in the cheering shouts of the

Romans on the bank.



"Back! back!" cried the axemen. "It will be down in a minute more; back

for your lives!"



"Back!" cried Horatius to his comrades, and they hastily retreated; but

he stood unmoving, still boldly facing the foe.



"Fly! It is about to fall!" was the shout.



"Let it," cried Horatius, without yielding a step.



And there he stood alone, defying the whole army of the Etruscans. From

a distance they showered their javelins on him, but he caught them on

his shield and stood unhurt. Furious that they should be kept from their

prey by a single man, they gathered to rush upon him and drive him from

his post by main force; but just then the creaking beams gave way, and

the half of the bridge behind him fell with a mighty crash into the

stream below.



The Etruscans paused in their course at this crashing fall, and gazed,

not without admiration, at the stalwart champion who had stayed an army

in its victorious career. He was theirs now; he could not escape; his

life should pay the penalty for their failure.



But Horatius had no such thought. He looked down on the stream, and

prayed to the god of the river, "O Father Tiber, I pray thee to receive

these arms and me who bear them, and to let thy waters befriend and

save me."



Then, with a quick spring, he plunged, heavy with armor, into the

swift-flowing stream, and struck out boldly for the shore. The foemen

rushed upon the bridge and poured their darts thick about him; yet none

struck him, and he swam safely to the shore, where his waiting friends

drew him in triumph from the stream.



For this grand deed of heroism the Romans set up a statue to Horatius in

the comitium, and gave him in reward as much land as he could drive his

plough round in the space of a whole day. Such deeds cannot be fitly

told in halting prose, and Lord Macaulay, in his "Lays of Ancient Rome,"

has most ably and picturesquely told



"How well Horatius kept the bridge

In the brave days of old."



But though Rome was saved from capture by assault, the war was not

ended, and other deeds of Roman heroism were to be done. Porsenna

pressed the siege of the city so closely that hunger became his ally,

and the Romans suffered greatly. Then another patriot devoted his life

to his city's good. This man, a young noble named Caius Mucius, went to

the senate and offered to go to the Etruscan camp and slay Lars Porsenna

in the midst of his men.



His proposal acceded to, he crossed the stream by stealth and slipped

covertly into the camp, through which he made his way, seeking the king.

At length he saw a man dressed in a scarlet robe and seated on a lofty

seat, while many were about him, coming and going. "This must be King

Porsenna," he said to himself, and he glided stealthily through the

crowd until he came near by, when, drawing a concealed dagger from

beneath his cloak, he sprang upon the man and stabbed him to the heart.



But the bold assassin had made a sad mistake. The man he had slain was

not the king, but his scribe, the king's chief officer. Being instantly

seized, he was brought before Porsenna, where the guards threatened him

with sharp torments unless he would truly answer all their questions.



"Torments!" he said. "You shall see how little I care for them."



And he thrust his right hand into the fire that was burning on the

altar, and held it there till it was completely consumed.



King Porsenna looked at him with an admiration that subdued all anger.

Never had he seen a man of such fortitude.



"Go your way," he cried, "for you have harmed yourself more than me. You

are a brave man, and I send you back to Rome free and unhurt."



"And you are a generous king," said Caius, "and shall learn more from me

for your kindness than tortures could have wrung from my lips. Know,

then, that three hundred noble youths of Rome have bound themselves by

oath to take your life. I am but the first; the others will in turn lie

in wait for you. I warn you to look well to yourself."



He was then set free, and went back to the city, where he was

afterwards known as Scaevola, the left-handed.



The warning of Caius moved King Porsenna to offer the Romans terms of

peace, which they gladly accepted. They were forced to give up all the

land they had conquered on the west bank of the Tiber, and to agree not

to use iron except to cultivate the earth. They were also to give as

hostages ten noble youths and as many maidens. These were sent; but one

of the maidens, Cloelia by name, escaped from the Etruscan camp, and,

bidding the other maidens to follow, fled to the river, into which they

all plunged and swam safely across to Rome.



They were sent back by the Romans, whose way it was to keep their

pledges; but King Porsenna, admiring the courage of Cloelia, set her

free, and bade her choose such of the youths as she wished to go with

her. She chose those of tenderest age, and the king set them free.



The Romans rewarded Caius by a gift of land, and had a statue made of

Cloelia, which was set up in the highest part of the Sacred Way. And

King Porsenna led his army home, with Tarquin still dethroned.