Showing posts with label Etruscan King Lars Porsena of Clusium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Etruscan King Lars Porsena of Clusium. Show all posts

Monday 4 November 2019

Dramatick Verse, a Fragment : Horatius Holds the Bridge

             HORATIUS :       A rout no child would own!
                                      You speak catastrophe.
  
             MESSENGER :  They milled around in great alarm.
                                      No thought but for our missing.

             HORATIUS :      Scum!

             MESSENGER :  Sire!

             HORATIUS :      Animal invertebratum!
                                      Your duty was to find them!


The hero, Horatius, a junior officer in the army of the early Roman
Republic, who famously defended Rome at the Tiber Bridge from the
invading army of Etruscans in the late 6th century BC. By defending
the narrow end of the bridge, he — together with commanders
Herminius and Lartius — was able to ward off the attacking army
long enough to allow other Romans to destroy the bridge behind him,
blocking the Etruscans’ advance and saving the city. According to
Livy’s History of Rome (ii. 10.), Horatius’s ‘own men, a panic-stricken
troop, were deserting their posts and discarding their weapons’;  how-
ever, Horatius's courage manages to rally the defence of the bridge.