money and effects. His true purpose had nothing to do with his wealth but was meant to test public opinion and to identify supporters. At an assembly Collatinus, Lucretia’s widower and Brutus’s fellow consul, spoke in favor of granting Tarquin’s request, but Brutus, uncompromising as ever, argued vehemently against this. However, the plea was allowed, evidence (it may be) of a degree of continuing affection for Tarquin among the lower classes.
The envoys, under cover of cataloguing, selling, or dispatching the former monarch’s property, suborned some highly placed young men, nephews of Collatinus and, even more appallingly, two sons of Brutus. Treachery ate at the heart of the new state. The conspirators decided they should swear together a fearful oath and, after killing a man, pour a libation of his blood and lay hands on his entrails.
A slave happened to be in the room where the ceremony was to take place one night. He hid behind a chest in the dark when the young men entered and listened to their conversation. They agreed that they would kill the consuls and prepare letters, outlining their plan, for the envoys to take away with them when they went back to Tarquin. The slave reported what had been said and done to the authorities. After a struggle, the conspirators were arrested and the damning correspondence was discovered.
The question now was what to do with the culprits, coming as they did from such high and mighty families. At an Assembly, most people were embarrassed and silent, although a few, wanting to do Brutus a favor, suggested banishment as the most appropriate punishment.
The consul was having none of it. Having considered the evidence, he called each of his sons by name. “Come, Titus, come Tiberius, why don’t you defend yourselves against the charges?” he asked. They did not answer, so he asked them the same question two more times. When they still held their tongues, Brutus turned to the lictors and said, “It is now for you to do the rest.” They stripped the boys on the spot, tied their hands behind their backs, and beat them with their rods. Brutus watched the scene with a fixed, unflinching gaze, even when his sons were then flung to the ground and had their heads chopped off.
The case against the other conspirators was heard, and Collatinus, fearful for his nephews, called for a moderate punishment. When Brutus objected, he shouted sarcastically, “I have the same authority as you, and since you are so boorish and cruel, I order the lads to be released.” Uproar followed, and it looked as though Collatinus would be unceremoniously removed from office then and there. To take the sting out of this constitutional crisis, he agreed to resign peaceably and went into exile.
This belief in the rule of law coupled with an almost inhuman severity were typically Roman qualities. Self- esteem was the gloomy reward for this kind of self-sacrifice. The pragmatic and puzzled Greeks found Brutus’s behavior “cruel and incredible.” Plutarch, whose biographies of Greek and Roman generals and politicians explore the ethics of public life, was taken aback, although he was too polite to moralize. Brutus, he wrote, had “performed an act which is difficult for one to praise or to blame too highly … [it] was either god-like or brutish.”
SUPERBUS WAS DISMAYED by the turn of events. Halfheartedly, he led an army against Rome, fought an indecisive battle, and abandoned the enterprise. He took refuge at the court of Lars Porsenna, king, or
When the enemy appeared on the far side of the Tiber, Romans in the fields withdrew into the city, which was soon surrounded. The river had been deemed a strong enough barrier in itself and no defenses had been built along its bank, so the Pons Sublicius, still Rome’s only bridge, was a weak point. If Porsenna’s men could cross it, the war would be lost and Superbus would be back in office.
The officer on guard at the bridge was a patrician, one Publius Horatius Cocles. He had lost an eye in battle—hence his last name, Cocles, which is Latin for “one-eyed.” The enemy suddenly captured the Janiculum Hill and ran down toward the bridge. All the guards panicked and fled except for Horatius and two companions, Spurius Larcius and Titus Herminius, both of Etruscan extraction. They strode to the head of the bridge on the Janiculum bank of the river and prepared to mount a defense. Their aim was to buy time for the men behind them to dismantle the bridge. The bridge was far too narrow for more than a few of Porsenna’s soldiers to advance across it at once, so the three men hoped they would be able to hold them up.
They had pluck and luck, and fought at close quarters, killing many Etruscans. Horatius ordered his companions to save themselves, and struggled on alone despite a spear having passed through one of his buttocks. At last, he heard the crash of the falling bridge behind him, and with a prayer to the god of the river he dived into the water and swam back to the Roman shore. The city was saved, at least for the time being.
In this second, less controversial instance of selflessness, Horatius’s conspicuous courage summed up everything that Romans understood by
Porsenna settled down to a long siege. Time passed. Food supplies were running low in the city, and the Etruscan king supposed that he would soon gain his objective by doing nothing. A young nobleman, Gaius Mucius, decided to take the initiative. Having obtained the Senate’s permission to attempt to assassinate Porsenna, he slipped into the enemy camp, wearing Etruscan clothes and speaking Etruscan fluently. A sword was concealed on his person. Unfortunately, he did not know the king by sight and dared not risk his cover by asking someone to point him out. But he saw the royal dais and joined a large crowd surrounding it.
It was payday and a well-dressed man on the dais, sitting beside the king, was busy handing out money. This was because he was the treasurer. As most people addressed themselves to him, Mucius could not be certain which was the man and which the master. He made the wrong choice. He jumped up onto the platform and stabbed the treasurer. He tried to make his escape through the crowd, but was caught and brought back before a furious Porsenna.
Mucius betrayed no hint of fear. “I am a Roman,” he said. “My name is Gaius Mucius. I can die as resolutely as I can kill. It is our Roman way to do and to suffer bravely.” He then hinted that there were many other would-be assassins who would follow in his footsteps.
In rage and alarm, Porsenna ordered the prisoner to be burned alive unless he revealed full details of the plot to which he had alluded. Mucius cried out, “See how cheap men hold their bodies who fix their eyes on honor and glory!” He then put his right hand into a fire that had been lit for a sacrifice, and let it burn there as if he felt no pain. The king was deeply impressed and had his guards pull Mucius from the altar. He then set him free, as an honorable enemy.
But Mucius had no intention of letting Porsenna off the hook. Lying with conviction, he said, “I will tell you in gratitude what you could not extract from me with threats. There are three hundred young Romans in your camp, disguised as Etruscans, all of whom have sworn to attempt your life. I happened to draw the shortest straw!” The shaken king decided to abandon Tarquin, negotiate a peace, and go home. Mucius was given the additional name, or cognomen, of Scaevola, meaning “left-handed”—an indirect reference to the fact that his right hand was now unusable.
Like its predecessors, this third heroic anecdote promoted self-sacrifice, but with a curious twist. In principle, Romans disparaged trickery in war—ambushes and similar underhanded behavior. They were realists, though, and regularly practiced deceit without always acknowledging it. Here Mucius, although in agony from his charred hand, still had the presence of mind to lie about the number of Roman assassins lurking in the Etruscan camp—an unchivalrous response, one might think, to Porsenna’s generosity in freeing him.
Scholars are unsure of the historicity of this tale. Perhaps it originated in a trial for perjury, for a hand placed in a fire was the established penalty for breaking an oath or a pledge. Entry into an enemy camp in disguise recalls a Greek legend about an Athenian king who dressed as a peasant in order to reach the camp of an invading army. Part or all of the incident may well be a fabrication. However, its melodramatic quality does not disqualify its moral from being taken seriously.
