feeling it, "I am,"
says he, "a Roman citizen, my name is Caius Mucius; an enemy, I wished
to slay an enemy, nor have I less of resolution to suffer death than I
had to inflict it. Both to act and to suffer with fortitude is a Roman's
part. Nor have I alone harboured such feelings towards you; there is
after me a long train of persons aspiring to the same honour. Therefore,
if you choose it, prepare yourself for this peril, to contend for your
life every hour; to have the sword and the enemy in the very entrance of
your pavilion; this is the war which we the Roman youth declare against
you; dread not an army in array, nor a battle; the affair will be to
yourself alone and with each of us singly." When the king, highly
incensed, and at the same time terrified at the danger, in a menacing
manner, commanded fires to be kindled about him, if he did not speedily
explain the plots, which, by his threats, he had darkly insinuated
against him; Mucius said, "Behold me, that you may be sensible of how
little account the body is to those who have great glory in view;" and
immediately he thrusts his right hand into the fire that was lighted for
the sacrifice. When he continued to broil it as if he had been quite
insensible, the king, astonished at this surprising sight, after he had
leaped from his throne and commanded the young man to be removed from
the altar, says, "Be gone, having acted more like an enemy towards
thyself than me. I would encourage thee to persevere in thy valour, if
that valour stood on the side of my country. I now dismiss you untouched
and unhurt, exempted from the right of war." Then Mucius, as if making a
return for the kindness, says, "Since bravery is honoured by you, so
that you have obtained by kindness that which you could not by threats,
three hundred of us, the chief of the Roman youth, have conspired to
attack you in this manner. It was my lot first. The rest will follow,
each in his turn, according as the lot shall set him forward, unless
fortune shall afford an opportunity of you."

13. Mucius being dismissed, to whom the cognomen of Scaevola was
afterwards given, from the loss of his right hand, ambassadors from
Porsena followed him to Rome. The risk of the first attempt, from which
nothing had saved him but the mistake of the assailant, and the risk to
be encountered so often in proportion to the number of conspirators,
made so strong an impression upon him, that of his own accord he made
propos