own desperate
enemy more than mine. I would wish well to your valour, if that
valour was on the side of my country. As it is, I send you hence
unharmed and free from the penalties of war.'

Livy, ii. 12. 8-14.

Later in the same war the Romans were compelled to give hostages,
twenty-four men and maidens. Cloelia, a highborn maiden sent among them,
escaped at night and on horseback swam across the foaming Tiber to Rome.
But since she had been given as a hostage and faith once given was
sacred, the Roman leaders sent her back.

_Cloelia's Heroism_

This reward granted to the heroism of Mucius inspired women also
with ambition to win honour from the people. The maiden Cloelia,
one of the hostages, escaped the sentries of the Etruscan camp,
which had been pitched near the Tiber, and amid a shower of
missiles swam across the river, leading a band of maidens whom she
brought back safe to their families in Rome. When Porsena heard of
it, he was at first enraged, and sent envoys to the city with a
demand for the return of his hostage Cloelia; he made no great
account of the others. Afterwards, his anger being changed to
admiration, he said that her exploit surpassed anything done by
Horatius or Mucius, and declared that he would consider the treaty
broken if the hostage was not surrendered, but that if she was, he
would send her back unharmed to her people. Faith was kept on both
sides; the Romans returned the guarantee of peace in accordance
with the terms of the treaty, and the King not only protected but
honoured the heroine, making her a present of half the hostages
and bidding her choose as she pleased. The story is that when they
were brought before her, she picked out the youngest, a choice at
once creditable to her modesty and approved by the unanimous wish
of the rest that those whose age made them most helpless should be
liberated first. After the restoration of peace the Romans
recognized this unexampled heroism in a woman with the honour,
also unexampled, of an equestrian statue. It was placed at the top
of the Sacred Way, a maiden sitting on a horse.

Livy, ii. 13. 6-11.

This same high temper and unflinching sense of honour was shown two
hundred years later in an even more splendid way by Atilius Regulus.

Regulus

In the first war against Carthage (255 B.C.) Regulus, a Roman general,
was heavily defeated and taken prisoner with a large