Porsenna
historical figure · 3 works · 4 mentions · 4 anchored passages
in the texts
Letters to Lucilius
Etruscan king whom Mucius attempted to kill and who later pardoned him.
more easily did Porsenna pardon Mucius for having wished to kill him than Mucius pardoned himself for not having killed.
Why should I not think Mucius the more fortunate, in that he handled the fire as though he had given that hand to the masseur?
He stood the despiser of the enemy and of the flames, and watched his hand dripping away on the enemy's brazier, until Porsenna, whose punishment he was furthering, grudged him his glory and ordered the fire to be snatched away against his will.
The Rights of War and Peace
Legendary Etruscan king who besieged Rome and made a truce with the Romans.
This is observed by Servius on that passage of Virgil, where the poet says, “the Latins mingled with their foes with impunity,” where he relates also that upon a truce being made between Porsenna and the Romans during a siege, when the games of the circus were celebrating, the generals of the enemy entered the city, contented in the lists, and were many of them crowned as conquerors.
On Benefits
Etruscan king besieging Rome, the target of Mucius's failed assassination attempt.
2 But, by Hercules, the Athenians call Harmodius and Aristogiton tyrant-slayers, and the hand left by Mucius on the enemy's altar was as good as Porsenna slain, and virtue ever struggling against fortune has shone forth even short of effecting the work proposed.