though he had destroyed the monarchy. Where failure constitutes the traitor, success makes the patriot: and upon the merest accident may depend the question whether the originator of a design against a bad government shall go to the block of the sculptor, or to that of the executioner.
P. Valerius was in no hurry to ask the people for a colleague, and he for some time did the whole of the business of the chief magistracy himself; so that had it not been for the mere name of the office, Rome might just as well have remained a monarchy. This fact seems to have flashed at last on the public mind; and when it was found that P. Valerius was building himself a stone residence, in a strong position, a rumour was spread abroad that he was aiming at the foundation of his own house, or family, in the kingly power. On hearing the report he immediately stopped the works of his intended residence, and having called a meeting of the curiæ, he appeared before them with his fasces reversed; a sign that the bundles of rods were not intended to be used on the backs of the people alone, but that they were held, as it were, in trust, and in pickle for the punishment of delinquency in general. This treatment of the fasces so fascinated the people, that they acquitted P. Valerius of every charge, and acknowledging their suspicions of a plot to be groundless, they gave him a plot of ground to build his house upon. Pleased with the taste of popularity, he continued to court it with so much success, that he gained the name of Publicola, or one who honours the public; and he certainly introduced many very wholesome legal reforms, by dabbling in law, in a spirit truly lau-dable. He gave an appeal from the magistrate to the people, in cases where the punishment awarded had been a fine, a whipping, or a hanging; and in the last instance the provision was extremely salutary, for the suspending of a sentence might often avoid the necessity for suspending an alleged criminal. This right of appeal was, however, limited to within a mile from the city; an arrangement that would have justified the formation of a league to abolish the mile, as an unnecessary distinction, of which we can only expose the absurdity, by suggesting the possibility of an offence committed at Knightsbridge being punishable at Newgate with immediate death; while the culprit of Holborn Hill, though nearer the place of execution, would be further from the scaffold.
Having passed several salutary acts, and secured, as it were, the cream of popularity to himself, he proposed the election of a colleague who might share the skim with him. The new consul was Spurius Lucretius; but poor Spurius enjoyed none of the genuine sweets of power. He was so far advanced in years, at the period of his advancement to office, that he had already one foot in the grave, and the other foot went in after it immediately on his taking his new position. M. Horatius Pulvillius was chosen in the poor old man's stead, and an incident speedily happened which caused a difference, leading to something more than personal indifference between the two consuls. The temple of Jupiter, on the Capitoline, so called from the incident already related, of the Caput Toli, or head of Tolus, had not yet been dedicated; and it having been arranged that the thing was to be done, the next question that arose was, "Who is to do it?" Both consuls were anxious for the job; and it was at length arranged that lots should be drawn, in order to settle the undecided point, which had led to such a decided coolness between P. Valerius and his colleague. Horatius was the happy man whom fortune favoured by her choice; and he was in the act of performing the ceremony, when, without any ceremony at all, a messenger rushed in, exclaiming that the son of the consul had suddenly expired. Believing the alarm to be false, Horatius hinted at his suspicion of its being one of the blackest of jobs, by suggesting that those who brought the news should go and attend the funeral. "As for me," he exclaimed, "I have other engagements just now;" and, continuing the work of dedication, he proceeded to mark the commencement of a new era, by driving a huge nail into the wall of the temple. Such was the mode by which chronology was taught to the early Romans, who had their dates literally hammered into them; and, as long as the consul hit the right nail upon the head, or went upon the proper tack, mistake was almost impossible.
The first specimen of diplomacy to be met with in the records of Rome must be referred to the first year of the Republic, when a treaty was concluded with Carthage, and engraved on brazen tables. The material was appropriate to the purpose it served; and the language was so obscure, that a modern treaty could scarcely have surpassed it in ambiguity. Some parts of it were unintelligible to the most learned of the Romans themselves; and, had any difference arisen as to the interpretation of the treaty, the tables must have been left to brazen it out; for no one could have explained their meaning. Though the document may have mystified many things, it made one thing clear, for it proved history to have been wrong in stating that Horatius succeeded Brutus, for they are described as both being consuls together at the date of the treaty. In following the ordinary version or perversion of the facts or fictions connected with the rise of Rome, we take history as we find it; and though much of it is known to be false, we, by continually making the admission, prevent the bane from remaining very long without the antidote.
P. Valerius was still consul, with P. Lucretius for a colleague, when the old King Tarquin happened to be on a visit, at Clusium, in Etruria, with the local Lar, Porsenna.13 After supper, Tarquin often grew garrulous about his alleged wrongs, and worked on the sympathies of his host, who declared the Romans should receive, through the medium of Porsenna, a tremendous physicking. The Lar accordingly set forth at the head of his army, and its approach being announced, the people in the suburbs of Rome were frightened out of their wits, and into the city. Throughout the whole of his journey, Porsenna administered a strong dose to all that opposed his way; and he scoured the country by the most drastic system of pillage. On arriving at Rome, he at once forced the Janiculum, the garrison rushing with their leader at their head, and the foe almost at their heels, into the city. Nothing was now between the Romans and their assailants but the wooden bridge, or Pons Sublicius; and when the people asked for consolation from their consul, he had none to offer them. Looking at the water, he saw there was no time for reflection; and he ordered the bridge to be cut down, when Horatius Cocles, the gatekeeper, volunteered to offer a check to the enemy. "I want but two," cried Horatius, "two only are wanted, to join with me in throwing for that great stake, the safety of Rome;" and there immediately presented themselves, as ready to "stand the hazard of the die," if die they must, the youthful Spurius Lartius of the Neminian race, and Herminius, belonging to the Tities. The three heroes took their station at the foot of the bridge, resolved that no one should pass without paying a poll-tax, in the shape of a blow on the head, which the valiant trio stood prepared to administer. A shout of derisive laughter was the only salute they received from the Etruscan army; but the laughter was soon transferred to the other side of the Etruscan mouth, and subsided altogether when no less than half-a-dozen tongues were found to have licked the dust, instead of the enemy. Porsenna's army had advanced to the sound of trumpets, which seemed no longer in a flourishing condition, but were as incapable of dealing out a blow as the soldiers themselves. A few of the troops in the rear shouted "Forward!" to those in the van; but there was such a determined cry of "Keep back!" among the foremost men, that all were under the influence of a general gib, and every rank gave evidence of rank cowardice.
While the Etruscans were shaking in their shoes on one side of the river, the Romans were shivering their own timbers, and knocking down beams and rafters on the other. They had razed the bridge to the ground, or rather lowered it to the water, when they called to their gallant defenders to come back, while there was still a plank left – a single deal to enable them to cut over to their partners.
Lartius and Herminius, seeing the game was nearly over, thought the only card they had to play was to discard their companion, and save themselves by a trick, which, however, would leave all the honours to Horatius. The two former darted across just before the remainder of the bridge fell, splashing into the water below, and rendering the tide untidy with the broken fragments.
Horatius was now alone in his glory, with the foe before him, and the flood behind; his only alternative being between a fatally hot reception by the one, and an uncomfortably cold reception by the other. Disdaining to beg for mercy from Porsenna, he prayed for pity from the Tiber, and making a bold plunge, he threw himself on the kind indulgence of the river. Being fastened up in armour, his case was a particularly hard one, and being encumbered as he was with his arms, to use his legs was scarcely possible. He nevertheless got on swimmingly, for his heart
Niebuhr spells the word with a double n, in the penultimate syllable; but Macaulay, who quotes four verses from different writers in favour of his orthography, writes the word Porsena, with the penultimate short.
