“Was he a swine, too?” asked Rex.
“No, I don’t think so. But he was fierce and warlike, and all those old States were jealous of Rome, because she was so powerful. They were all anxious for a chance to take her down.”
“Who’s ‘her’?” queried Rex.
“Oh, they spoke of Rome as ‘she.’ Well, you can just imagine this mouldy Tarquin crowd coming to Lars Porsena and telling him all sorts of yarns about the way the Romans had treated them, and saying what a great man he was, and that they were jolly well sure he’d never see them in a hole. I don’t suppose Lars Porsena believed half they said, but he was quite willing to have a war. All those chiefs were. They reckoned fighting was the only game fit for a man.”
“So it is,” quoth Billy, in martial tones.
“And Lars Porsena was awfully keen on his army. He was the biggest man of that part of the country, and he could command all the fighting men from ever so many cities. And he sent his messengers everywhere to muster them all at Clusium. And they came, as hard as they could pelt—armies and armies of them, until he had ten thousand cavalry and eighty thousand infantry. Just you picture that, young Rex—all in glittering armour, and with splendid flags, and simply gorgeous horses.”
“Whew-w!” whistled Rex. “But this isn’t really ‘Horatius,’ is it?”
“Yes, of course it is. It’s the only ‘Horatius.’ Just you forget that you ever learned it as a lesson—it’s a fighting yarn, and old Macaulay told it in a top-hole way. You’ve got to listen to it all presently; Jo must read it, ’cause she reads better than I do, and it’s just all music.”
“It’s not music when I say it,” Rex said, with a grin.
“No, ’cause you say it as if you were a lump of dough, and you come down with a ‘wop’ at the end of each line. You don’t make any sense of it. You listen to Jo—and when she comes to the name of any place, I’ll show it to you on the atlas. Well, Lars Porsena mustered all his crowd—ninety thousand—and then he consulted his tame prophets, and asked them what he’d better do. There were thirty of them, and they were very tame—they always said what they were wanted to say. They knew the king wanted horribly to go to fight Rome, so they told him it was all right, and he must go ahead and bring all the spoils of Rome back with him. So off they went, and as soon as they got to the Roman country they began to burn villages and kill the people. Now you read, Jo.”