United States or Falkland Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The real Horatius of the stirring time of which we write was that old and tried veteran, the Honourable Brush Bascom; and Spurius Lartius might be typified by the indomitable warrior, the Honourable Jacob Botcher, while the Honourable Samuel Doby of Hale, Speaker of the House, was unquestionably Herminius.
But Herminius, the same that kept the bridge over Tiber along with Horatius against the army of King Porsenna, espied him coming, and knew him for the Chief by his garments. He made at him with all his might, and with one blow smote him through the side and slew him. But while he stripped the body of its armour one of the Latins thrust at him with a spear, and hurt him that he fell to the earth.
There stood the brave three Horatius, Lartius, and Herminius guarding the bridge while their fellow-citizens were fleeing across it, three men against a whole army. At last the weapons of Lartius and Herminius were broken down, and Horatius bade them hasten over the bridge while it could still bear their weight.
Tacitus relates that the three tribes which composed Germania, the Ingaevones, the Istaevones and the Herminones or Hermiones, were thus named from the three sons of Mannus. Whether that be true or not, he wished in any case to indicate that there was a hero named Herminius, from whom he was told the Herminones were named. Herminones, Hermenner, Hermunduri all mean the same, that is, Soldiers.
Two, however, a sense of shame kept back with him, Spurius Larcius and Titus Herminius, both men of high birth, and renowned for their gallant exploits. With them he for a short time stood the first storm of danger, and the severest brunt of the battle.
On the Roman side were many true and tried warriors, among them Titus Herminius, one of those who fought on the bridge by the side of Horatius Cocles, when that champion fought so well for Rome. It is too long to tell how warrior rode against warrior with levelled lances, and how this one was struck through the breast and that one through the arm, and so on in true Homeric style.
Titus Herminius, a lieutenant-general, seeing them advancing in a body, and recognising Mamilius, distinguished among them by his armour and dress, encountered the leader of the enemy with violence so much greater than the master of the horse had shown a little before, that at one thrust he ran him through the side and slew him.
And when there was but a small part remaining, and they that brake it down called to the three that they should come back, Horatius bade Lartius and Herminius return, but he himself remained on the farther side, turning his eyes full of wrath in threatening fashion on the princes of the Etrurians, and crying, "Dare ye now to fight with me? or why are ye thus come at the bidding of your master, King Porsenna, to rob others of the freedom that ye care not to have for yourselves?"
'Come back, come back, Horatius! Loud cried the Fathers all; 'Back, Lartius! Back, Herminius! Back, ere the ruin fall! 'Back darted Spurius Lartius, Herminius darted back; And as they passed, beneath their feet They felt the timbers crack; But when they turn'd their faces, And on the farther shore Saw brave Horatius stand alone, They would have cross'd once more.
On one occasion, when the sides were drawn up in grim battle array, facing each other lemon in hand, every boy as dauntless as Horatius, Herminius, and Spurius Lartius, and just when the signal for the conflict was to be given, suddenly upon the scene appeared Baden-Powell, swathed from head to foot in tremendous padding, with nothing to be seen of his little brown face save the bright, mischievous eyes peeping out of two slits.
Word Of The Day