PORSENA (or PORSENNA), LARS

This article appears in Volume V22, Page 106 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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PORSENA (or PORSENNA), LARS , king of

Clusium

CLUSIUM (mod. Chiusi, q.v.)

in ,Etruria. He is said to have undertaken an expedition against Rome in order to restore the banished Tarquinius Superbus to the throne. He gained possession of the janiculum, and was prevented from entering Rome only by the bravery of Horatius Cocles (q.v.). Porsena then laid siege to the city, but was so struck by the courage of Mucius Scaevola that he made peace on

condition

CONDITION (Lat. condicio, from condicere, to agree upon, arrange; not connected with conditio, from condere, conditum, to put together)

that the Romans restored the land they had taken from

Veii

VEII

and gave him twenty hostages. He subsequently returned both the land and the hostages (Livy, ii. 915;

Dion

DION

. Halic., v. 2134; Plutarch, Poplicola, p. 1619). This story is probably an attempt to conceal a

great

GREAT

disaster and to soothe the vanity of the Romans by accounts of legendary exploits. According to other authorities, the Romans were obliged to surrender the city, to acknowledge Porsena's supremacy by sending him a sceptre, a royal robe, and an ivory chair, to abandon their territory north of the Tiber, to give up their arms, and in future to use iron for agricultural purposes only. It is curious that, in spite of his military success, Porsena made no attempt to restore the Tarquinian dynasty. Hence it is suggested that the attack on Rome was merely an incident of the

march

of the Etruscans, driven southward by the invasion of upper Italy by the Celts, through Latium on their way to Campania. This would account for its transitory effects, and the speedy recovery of the Romans from the blow. With the departure of Porsena all traces of

Etruscan

ETRUSCAN

sovereignty disappear and Rome is soon vigorously engaged in the prosecution of various wars (see Tacitus, Hist. 72; Pliny, Nat. Hist. xxxiv. 39 [141;

Dion

DION

Halle

. v. 35, 36, vii. 5). The tomb at Chiusi described by Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxxvi. 19) as that of Porsena cannot have been his burial-place (see CLuslum).
For a

critical

CRITICAL (in alphabetical order of authors)

examination of the story, see Schwegler, Romische Geschichte, bk. xxi. 18; Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, Credibility of Early Roman History, ch. xii. 5; W. Ihne, Hist. of Rome, vol. i.; E. Pais, Storia di Roma, i. ch. iv. (1898). Macaulay's

Lays

LAYS

of Ancient Rome gives a dramatic version of the story.

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