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Updated: June 21, 2025
Very many of Burton's books, pamphlets and articles in the journals of the learned societies appeal solely to archaeologists, as, for example Etruscan Bologna, an account of the Etrurian people, their sharp bottomed wells, the pebble tombs of the poor and the elegant mausoleums of the wealthy with their figures of musicians and dancing girls "in garments of the most graceful form, finest texture and brilliant hues;" reminding us of the days when Veii fell, and its goddess, who "was light and easily removed, as though she followed willingly," as Livy, with his tongue in his cheek, says, was conveyed to Rome; and of the later days when "Lars Porsena of Clusium" poured southward his serried host, only, according to the Roman historians, to meet with defeat and discomfiture.
But as the orphanhood and desolation of my own family depresses my mind, so both the good fortune and valour of our nation forbid me to despair of the safety of the state. It has happened to us by a kind of fatality, that in all important wars we have been victorious, after having been defeated. I pass over those wars of ancient date with Porsena, the Gauls, and Samnites.
The condition of restoring their territory to the Veientians was obtained by him, and the necessity of giving hostages in case they wished the garrison to be withdrawn from the Janiculum was extorted from the Romans. Peace being concluded on these terms, Porsena drew his troops out of the Janiculum, and marched out of the Roman territories.
He was able to speak the Etruscan language, and felt that a little audacity was all that he needed to carry his mission out safely. Though he went boldly, he killed a secretary dressed in purple, instead of his master, and was caught and threatened with torture. The Roman writers say that, thereupon Porsena took hostages from them and made peace.
As I turned over his leaves just now, I lighted on another instance of what I cannot but call ridiculous presumption. He says that Martial committed a blunder in making the penultimate of Porsena short. Strange that so great a scholar should not know that Horace had done so too! Minacis aut Etrusca Porsenae manus.
But now, when the whole Tuscan league, taking advantage of the confusion and the weakness of the Roman state after the expulsion of the Tarquins, renewed its attack more energetically than before under the king Lars Porsena of Clusium, it no longer encountered the wonted resistance. It seemed as if the union of Italy under Tuscan supremacy was not far distant.
Porsena, thinking that it would be an honour to the Tuscans both that there should be a king at Rome, and especially one of the Etrurian nation, marched towards Rome with a hostile army. Never before on any other occasion did so great terror seize the senate; so powerful was the state of Clusium at the time, and so great the renown of Porsena.
Cortona was invited to Florence by the Grand Duke Ferdinand II., to paint the saloon and four apartments in the Pitti palace, where he represented the Clemency of Alexander to the family of Darius, the Firmness of Porsena, the Continence of Cyrus, the History of Massanissa, and other subjects.
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.
The Etruscan confederations appear to have been from the first still more than the other Italian leagues formed on a similar basis of national affinity deficient in a firm and paramount central authority. 1. -Ras-ennac-, with the gentile termination mentioned below. To this period belong e. g. inscriptions on the clay vases of Such as Maecenas, Porsena, Vivenna, Caecina, Spurinna.
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