Ab urbe condita

This is the war which we, the youth of Rome, declare against you.

You have no serried ranks, no pitched battle to fear, the matter will be settled between you alone and each one of us singly.”

The king, furious with anger, and at the same time terrified at the unknown danger, threatened that if he did not promptly explain the nature of the plot which he was darkly hinting at he should be roasted alive. “Look,” Mucius cried, “and learn how lightly those regard their bodies who have some great glory in view.” Then he plunged his right hand into a fire burning on the altar.

Whilst he kept it roasting there as if he were devoid of all sensation, the king, astounded at his preternatural conduct, sprang from his seat and ordered the youth to be removed from the altar. “Go,” he said, “you have been a worse enemy to yourself than to me. I would invoke blessings on your courage if it were displayed on behalf of my country; as it is, I send you away exempt from all rights of war, unhurt, and safe.”

Then Mucius, reciprocating, as it were, this generous treatment. said, “Since you honour courage, know that what you could not gain by threats you have obtained by kindness. Three hundred of us, the foremost amongst the Roman youth, have sworn to attack you in this way.

The lot fell to me first, the rest, in the order of their lot will come each in his turn till fortune shall give us a favourable chance against you.”

Mucius was accordingly dismissed; afterwards he received the sobriquet of Scaevola from the loss of his right hand. Envoys from Porsena followed him to Rome.

The king's narrow escape from the first of many attempts which was owing solely to the mistake of his assailant, and the prospect of having to meet as many attacks as there were conspirators, so unnerved him that he made proposals of peace to Rome.

One for the restoration of the Tarquins was put forward, more because he could not well refuse their request than because he had any hope of its being granted.

The demand for the restitution of their territory to the Veientines, and that for the surrender of hostages as a condition of the withdrawal of the detachment from the Janiculum, were felt by the Romans to be inevitable, and on their being accepted and peace concluded, Porsena moved his troops from the Janiculum and evacuated the Roman territory.