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!
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| 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. |
