the honor; so
when he was now saying the prayer of consecration, with his hand upon
the doorpost of the temple, there came a messenger, who told him that
his son was just dead, and that one mourning for a son could not rightly
consecrate the temple. But Horatius kept his hand upon the doorpost,
and told them to see to the burial of his son, and finished the rites of
consecration. Thus did he honor the gods even above his own son.

In the next year Valerius was again made consul, with T. Lucretius; and
Tarquinius, despairing now of aid from his friends at Veii and
Tarquinii, went to Lars Porsenna of Clusium, a city on the river Clanis,
which falls into the Tiber. Porsenna was at this time acknowledged as
chief of the twelve Etruscan cities; and he assembled a powerful army
and came to Rome. He came so quickly that he reached the Tiber and was
near the Sublician Bridge before there was time to destroy it; and if he
had crossed it the city would have been lost. Then a noble Roman, called
Horatius Codes, of the Lucerian tribe, with two friends--Sp. Lartius, a
Ramnian, and T. Herminius, a Titian--posted themselves at the far end of
the bridge, and defended the passage against all the Etruscan host,
while the Romans were cutting it off behind them. When it was all but
destroyed, his two friends retreated across the bridge, and Horatius was
left alone to bear the whole attack of the enemy. Well he kept his
ground, standing unmoved amid the darts which were showered upon his
shield, till the last beams of the bridge fell crashing into the river.
Then he prayed, saying, "Father Tiber, receive me and bear me up, I pray
thee." So he plunged in, and reached the other side safely; and the
Romans honored him greatly: they put up his statue in the Comitium, and
gave him as much land as he could plough round in a day, and every man
at Rome subscribed the cost of one day's food to reward him.

Then Porsenna, disappointed in his attempt to surprise the city,
occupied the Hill Janiculum, and besieged the city, so that the people
were greatly distressed by hunger. But C. Mucius, a noble youth,
resolved to deliver his country by the death of the king. So he armed
himself with a dagger, and went to the place where the king was used to
sit in judgment. It chanced that the soldiers were receiving their pay
from the king's secretary, who sat at his right hand splendidly
apparelled; and as this man seemed to be chief in authority, Mucius
thoug