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Plutarch, in his Roman Questions, declares that there was a time when the Romans paid a tenth of their produce to the Etrurians, but that they were freed from the disgraceful tribute by Hercules; this tradition appears to refer to the conquest of the city by Porsenna. Besides this, by his emissaries, he engaged the meaner sort of citizens and the slaves in a conspiracy.
To this Porsenna gave credit, and thereupon expressed an inclination to a truce, not, I presume, so much out of fear of the three hundred Romans, as in admiration of the Roman courage. All other writers call this man Mucius Scaevola, yet Athenodorus, son of Sandon, in a book addressed to Octavia, Caesar's sister, avers he was also called Postumus.
But Tarquin proudly replied he would admit no judge, much less Porsenna, that had fallen away from his engagements; and Porsenna, resenting this answer, and mistrusting the equity of his cause, moved also by the solicitations of his son Aruns, who was earnest for the Roman interest, made a peace on these conditions, that they should resign the land they had taken from the Tuscans, and restore all prisoners and receive back their deserters.
The Apostle John, to whom the 'Secreta caelestia' were revealed; the secretary of Porsenna, whom Mucius Scaevola mistook for the king; Maecenas, who was private secretary to Augustus; the archbishops, who in Germany were called chancellors, are all appealed to in turn. 'The apostolic secretaries have the most weighty business of the world in their hands.
At the close of the skirmish between the Romans and Etruscans, near Albano, in which Aruns, the son of Lars Porsenna, was slain, whose tomb may still be seen on the spot, a noise like that which Livy mentions was heard among the surrounding hills.
Nevertheless, Porsenna, making a sharp assault, obliged the defendants to retire to Rome, who had almost in their entrance admitted the enemy into the city with them; only Poplicola by sallying out at the gate prevented them, and, joining battle by Tiber side, opposed the enemy, that pressed on with their multitude, but at last, sinking under desperate wounds, was carried out of the fight.
Poplicola was, in his absence, chosen consul a second time, and Titus Lucretius his colleague, and, returning to Rome, to show a spirit yet loftier than Porsenna's, built the city Sigliuria when Porsenna was already in the neighborhood; and, walling it at great expense, there placed a colony of seven hundred men, as being little concerned at the war.
Has he forgotten that Spartan mother, who said to her son, when going out to battle, 'My son, come back to me with thy shield, or upon thy shield'? Does he not remember Cloelia and her hundred companions, who swam across the river, under a shower of darts, escaping from Porsenna? Has he forgotten Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, who declared that her children were her jewels? And why?
Will ye never lack a cause for going back from your word? Ye gave hostages to Porsenna and got them back by stealth. Ye ransomed your State from the Gauls for gold, and slew them even while ye paid it. Ye made peace with us that ye might get back your legions that were taken, and now ye would disannul it. Is this the law of nations, thou herald, as thou takest it to be?
Not far from thence is the ruin of a prison for debt, where it is said a fine trait of filial piety was displayed, which is pretty generally known. It was also in this place that Clelia and her companions, prisoners of Porsenna, crossed the Tiber in order to rejoin the Romans.
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