United States or British Virgin Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But the match between him and Metella, falling out a few days after, occasioned suspicions that he had complained of Cloelia without due cause. To Metella he always showed great deference, so much so that the people, when anxious for the recall of the exiles of Marius's party, upon his refusal, entreated the intercession of Metella.
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. A third time Tarquin the Proud marched against Rome, this time in alliance with the Latins, whose thirty cities had joined together and declared war against the Romans.
Cloelia and Horatius get statues in the Forum; Scævola is endowed with great lands, which his race holds for centuries, and leaves a name so great that two thousand years later, Sforza, greatest leader of the Middle Age, coveting long ancestry, makes himself descend from the man who burned off his own hand.
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?
As they saw no guards, nor any one passing except in boats, they determined to swim across, although the stream was strong and deep. Some say that one of them, by name Cloelia, rode on a horse across the river, encouraging the others as they swam.
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 are great figures, the two men and the noble girl, and real to us, in a way, because we can stand on the very ground they trod, where Horatius fought, where Scævola suffered and where Cloelia took the river. They are nearer to us than Romulus, nearer even than Lucretia, as each figure, following the city's quick life, has more of reality about it, and not less of heroism.
They allowed their women to celebrate an annual feast, to commemorate the reconciliation between them and the Sabines, by means of their wives; and they erected an equestrian statue to Cloelia, and a temple to Fortune, in honour of the sex; because the mother and wife of Coriolanus had caused that hero to retire weeping from his native country, when he was irresistible by arms.
News of this deed being brought to the King he was at the first moved to great wrath, and sent ambassadors to Rome who should demand the hostage Cloelia to be restored; as for the others he cared little for them; but afterwards, his wrath giving place to wonder, he cried, "Surely this deed is greater even than the keeping of the bridge by Horatius, or the burning of his right hand by Scævola.
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.
Word Of The Day