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Updated: June 21, 2025
He was a man of great courage, and very daring in war, who, meaning to assassinate Porsena, stole into the camp in an Etruscan dress and speaking the Etruscan language. When he arrived at the raised platform on which the king was sitting, he did not exactly know which was he, and being afraid to ask, he drew his sword and killed the man who of all the party looked most as if he were the king.
But Poplicola, who was now consul for the third time, though he thought it his chief duty to remain stedfast and hold out the city against Porsena, did nevertheless sally out and attack these men, routing them with a loss of five thousand. Now as to the legend of Mucius, it is told in many different ways, but I will relate it as it seems most probable that it happened.
Porsena, after making peace with the Romans, among many other instances of generosity, ordered his army to carry back nothing but their arms when they retired, leaving the entrenched camp full of food and property of every kind for the Romans.
Porsena, after ending the Roman war, that his army might not seem to have been led into these parts without effecting any thing, sent his son Aruns with a part of his forces to besiege Aricia.
Over the starling, perhaps, it lacked something in appropriateness. The buriers meant well however. Their favourite in verse at the time was Lars Porsena of Clusium, and they gave the starling the best they knew gave it to him from beginning to end. What he made of it, there is no telling: he is, it is said an impressionable bird, though something of a satirist.
There, when the soldiers were receiving their pay, and the king's secretary sitting by him, dressed nearly in the same style, was busily engaged, and to him they commonly addressed themselves, being afraid to ask which of them was Porsena, lest by not knowing the king he should discover on himself, as fortune blindly directed the blow, he killed the secretary instead of the king.
No trace has been preserved of any advance in architecture among the Etruscans during this period; we find among them neither any really new reception, nor any original creation, unless we ought to reckon as such the magnificent tombs, e. g. the so-called tomb of Porsena at Chiusi described by Varro, which vividly recalls the strange and meaningless grandeur of the Egyptian pyramids.
At Rome, Poplicola, though absent, was chosen consul for the second time, and with him, Titus Lucretius. He returned to Rome, and by way of putting a slight upon Porsena, went and founded the city of Sigliuria, while his army was close at hand.
"Just then a scout came flying, All wild with haste and fear To arms! to arms! Sir Consul Lars Porsena is here. On the low hills to westward The Consul fixed his eye, And saw the swarthy storm of dust Rise fast along the sky." It will not do to push a comparison too far, and Mr. Hamilton Tooting, of course, ought not to be made to act the part of Tarquin the Proud.
Porsena, the Lar of Clusium, comes against the city with a great host in gilded arms. Terror descends like a dark mist over the young nation. The rich fear for their riches, the poor for their lives.
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