the
alarm, rose out of the ambush and fell upon the rear of the Tuscans, who
had charged Valerius. The shout was returned on the right and left, from
the Colline gate on the one hand, and the Naevian on the other. By this
stratagem the plunderers were put to the sword between both, they not
being a match in strength for fighting, and all the ways being blocked
up to prevent escape: this put an end to the Etrurians strolling about
in so disorderly a manner.

12. Nevertheless the blockade continued, and there was a scarcity of
corn, with a very high price. Porsena entertained a hope that by
continuing the siege he should take the city, when C. Mucius, a young
nobleman, to whom it seemed a disgrace that the Roman people, when
enslaved under kings, had never been confined within their walls in any
war, nor by any enemy, should now when a free people be blocked up by
these very Etrurians whose armies they had often routed, thinking that
such indignity should be avenged by some great and daring effort, at
first designed of his own accord to penetrate into the enemy's camp.
Then, being afraid if he went without the permission of the consuls, or
the knowledge of any one, he might be seized by the Roman guards and
brought back as a deserter, the circumstances of the city at the time
justifying the charge, he went to the senate: "Fathers," says he, "I
intend to cross the Tiber, and enter the enemy's camp, if I can; not as
a plunderer, or as an avenger in our turn of their devastations. A
greater deed is in in my mind, if the gods assist." The senate approved
his design. He set out with a sword concealed under his garment. When he
came thither, he stationed himself among the thickest of the crowd, near
the king's tribunal. There, when the soldiers were receiving their pay,
and the king's secretary sitting by him, dressed nearly in the same
style, was busily engaged, and to him they commonly addressed
themselves, being afraid to ask which of them was Porsena, lest by not
knowing the king he should discover on himself, as fortune blindly
directed the blow, he killed the secretary instead of the king. When, as
he was going off thence where with his bloody dagger he had made his way
through the dismayed multitude, a concourse being attracted at the
noise, the king's guards immediately seized and brought him back
standing alone before the king's tribunal; even then, amid such menaces
of fortune, more capable of inspiring dread than of