PORSE'NA, or PORSENNA, LARS. In the early and uncertain history of Rome, a powerful King of Clusium (now Chiusi), in Etruria. Ac cording to the legend told by Livy, when Tarquin the Proud was expelled from Rome he sought the help of his Etruscan kinsmen in Veii and Tar quinii, against his revolted subjects; but their efforts not proving successful, he turned to Por sena, who willingly espoused his cause, and marched a great army against Rome. The Etrus can King seized the Janieulum, a fortified hill on the west side of the Tiber, and would have forced his way into the city across the "Bridge of Wooden Piles" (pans sublicius), had not a brave Roman. Horatius Coeles, kept the whole of Por sena's army at bay, while his comrades behind him hewed down the bridge; after which he plunged into the Tiber, and safely swam across its waves. Porsena, we are informed, now laid siege to home, and after a while the inhabitants began to suffer so severely from famine that they bad recourse to a desperate expedient. Three hundred of the noblest Roman youths swore to risk their lives in an attempt to assassinate the Etruscan King. The first on whom the lot fell was C. 'Much's, who stole into the camp of Por sena, hut, not knowing the person of the King, killed his secretary instead. He was instantly seized, and put to the torture; but the unshrink ing audacity with which he thrust his hand into the fire and let it burn moved the King so much that he pardoned him, whereupon INlueins (ever afterwards called Scwro/a, the left-handed') told him of the jeopardy in which he was placed.
Porsena resolved to make peace with Rome at once, and, his conditions being accepted by the sorely pressed citizens, he withdrew his forces. This version of the story is believed to have been invented to conceal the fact of a temporary Etruscan conquest, and the evidence in favor of this view overwhelming. Taeitus expressly affirms that Porsena conquered the city; Diony sius informs us that the senate sent him an ivory sceptre, a golden crown, and a triumphal robe. which was the form that had been adopted by the Etruscan cities themselves of acknowledging the supremacy of the Roman King, Tarquinius Pris cus; and Pliny mentions that Porsena forbade the citizens of Rome to use iron, except for agricul tural purposes. What seems most reasonable to believe is that a great rising of the Etruscan against the Latin races took place. and that Rome was exposed to the first brunt of the war, and suffered a disastrous defeat, but that shortly after the Etruscans themselves were decisively beaten, and forced back into their own terri tories; for after the conquest of Rome Aruns, a son of Porsena, proceeded against Aricia, under the walls of which city (according to Livy) his army was routed by the combined forces of the Latin cities, with the help of Greek auxiliaries from Cmme.