Then it was, too, that the people
determined to erect a bridge which could be more readily removed in
case of necessity. Baffled in this attempt to enter Rome, the enemy
laid siege to the city, and as it was unprepared, it soon suffered the
distress of famine. Then another brave man arose, Caius Mucius by name,
and offered to go to the camp of the invaders and kill the hated king.
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. Putting his right
hand into the fire on the altar near by, he held it there until it was
destroyed, [Footnote: Mucius was after this called Sc?vola, the left-
handed.] and said that suffering had no terrors for him, nor for three
hundred of his companions who had all vowed to kill the king. The Roman
writers say that, thereupon Porsena took hostages from them and made
peace. It is true that peace was made, but Rome was forced to agree not
to use iron except in cultivating the earth, and she lost ten of her
thirty "regions," being all the territory that the kings had conquered
on the west bank of the Tiber.
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