This was the first war for the restoration of Tarquin.
Valerius was now left without a colleague; and as he began to build a house on the top of the hill Velia, which looked down upon the forum, the people feared that he was aiming at kingly power. Thereupon Valerius not only pulled down the house, but, calling an assembly of the people, he ordered the lictors to lower the fasces before them, as an acknowledgment that their power was superior to his. He likewise brought forward a law enacting that every citizen who was condemned by a magistrate should have a right of appeal to the people. Valerius became, in consequence, so popular that he received the surname of Publicola, or "The People's Friend."
Valerius then summoned an assembly for the election of a successor to Brutus, and Sp. Lucretius was chosen. Lucretius, however, lived only a few days, and M. Horatius was elected consul in his place. It was Horatius who had the honor of consecrating the temple on the Capitol, which Tarquin had left unfinished when he was driven from the throne.
The second year of the republic (B.C. 508) witnessed the second attempt of Tarquin to recover the crown. He now applied for help to Lars Porsena, the powerful ruler of the Etruscan town of Clusium, who marched against Rome at the head of a vast army. The Romans could not meet him in the field; and Porsena seized without opposition the Janiculum, a hill immediately opposite the city, and separated from it only by the Tiber. Rome was now in the greatest danger, and the Etruscans would have entered the city by the Sublician bridge had not Horatius Cocles, with two comrades, kept the whole Etruscan army at bay while the Romans broke down the bridge behind him. When it was giving way he sent back his two companions, and withstood alone the attacks of the foe till the cracks of the falling timbers and the shouts of his countrymen told him that the bridge had fallen. Then praying, "O Father Tiber, take me into thy charge and bear me up!" he plunged into the stream and swam across in safety, amid the arrows of the enemy. The state raised a statue in his honor, and allowed him as much land as he could plow round in one day. Few legends are more celebrated in Roman history than this gallant deed of Horatius, and Roman writers loved to tell
"How well Horatius kept the bridge
In the brave days of old."
The Etruscans now proceeded to lay siege to the city, which soon began to suffer from famine. Thereupon a young Roman, named C. Mucius, resolved to deliver his country by murdering the invading king. He accordingly went over to the Etruscan camp; but, ignorant of the person of Porsena, killed the royal secretary instead. Seized and threatened with torture, he thrust his right hand into the fire on the altar, and there let it burn, to show how little he heeded pain. Astonished at his courage, the king bade him depart in peace; and Mucius, out of gratitude, advised him to make peace with Rome, since three hundred noble youths, he said, had sworn to take the life of the king, and he was the first upon whom the lot had fallen. Mucius was henceforward called Scævola, or the Left-handed, because his right hand had been burnt off. Porsena, alarmed for his life, which he could not secure against so many desperate men, forthwith offered peace to the Romans on condition of their restoring to the Veientines the land which they had taken from them. These terms were accepted, and Porsena withdrew his troops from the Janiculum after receiving ten youths and ten maidens as hostages from the Romans. Clœlia, one of the maidens, escaped from the Etruscan camp, and swam across the Tiber to Rome. She was sent back by the Romans to Porsena, who was so amazed at her courage that he not only set her at liberty, but allowed her to take with her those of the hostages whom she pleased.
Thus ended the second attempt to restore the Tarquins by force.[12]
After Porsena quitted Rome, Tarquin took refuge with his son-in-law, Octavius Mamilius, of Tusculum. The thirty Latin cities now espoused the cause of the exiled king, and declared war against Rome. The contest was decided by the battle of the Lake Regillus, which was long celebrated in Roman story, and the account of which resembles one of the battles in the Iliad. The Romans were commanded by the Dictator,[13] A. Postumius, and by T. Æbutius, the Master of the Horse; at the head of the Latins were Tarquin and Octavius Mamilius. The struggle was fierce and bloody, but the Latins at length fled. Almost all the chiefs on either side fell in the conflict, or were grievously wounded. Titus, the son of Tarquin, was killed; and the aged king was wounded, but escaped with his life. It was related in the old tradition that the Romans gained this battle by the assistance of the gods Castor and Pollux, who were seen charging the Latins at the head of the Roman cavalry, and who afterward carried to Rome the tidings of the victory. A temple was built in the forum on the spot where they appeared, and their festival was celebrated yearly.
This was the third and last attempt to restore the Tarquins. The Latins were completely humbled by this victory. Tarquinius Superbus had no other state to which he could apply for assistance. He had already survived all his family; and he now fled to Cumæ, where he died a wretched and childless old man (B.C. 496).
