seat and commanded the young man to be removed from the altar.  “Depart,” said he, “thou who hast acted more like an enemy toward thyself than toward me.  I would bid thee go on and prosper in thy valour, if that valour were on the side of my country.  I now dismiss thee unharmed and unhurt, exempt from the right of war.”  Then Mucius, as if in return for the kindness, said:  “Since bravery is held in honour with you, that you may obtain from me by your kindness that which you could not obtain by threats, know that we are three hundred, the chief of the Roman youth, who have conspired to attack you in this manner.  The lot fell upon me first.  The rest will be with you each in his turn, according to the fortune that shall befall me who drew the first lot, until fortune on some favourable opportunity shall have delivered you into their hands.”

Mucius, to whom the surname of Scaevola[13] was afterward given from the loss of his right hand, was let go and ambassadors from Porsina followed him to Rome.  The danger of the first attempt, in which nothing had protected him but the mistake of his secret assailant, and the thought of the risk of life he would have to run so often in proportion to the number of surviving conspirators that remained, made so strong an impression upon him that of his own accord he offered terms of peace to the Romans.  In these terms the restoration of the Tarquins to the throne was proposed and discussed without success, rather because he felt he could not refuse that to the Tarquins, than from ignorance that it would be refused him by the Romans.  In regard to the restoration of territory to the Veientines his request was granted, and the obligation of giving hostages, if they wished the garrison to be withdrawn from the Janiculum, was extorted from the Romans.  Peace being concluded on these terms, Porsina led his troops down from the Janiculum, and withdrew from Roman territory.  The fathers bestowed upon Gaius Mucius, in reward for his valour, some land on the other side of the Tiber, which was afterward called the Mucian meadows.  By this honour paid to valour women also were roused to deeds that brought glory to the state.  Among others, a young woman named Claelia, one of the hostages, escaped her keepers, and, as the camp of the Etruscans had been pitched not far from the bank of the Tiber, swam over the river, amid the darts of the enemy, at the head of a band of maidens, and brought them all back in safety to their relations at Rome.  When news of this was brought to the king, at first, furious with rage, he sent deputies to Rome to demand the hostage Claelia, saying that he did not set great store by the rest:  afterward, his feelings being changed to admiration, he said that this deed surpassed those of men like Cocles and Mucius, and further declared that, as he would consider the treaty broken if the hostage were not delivered up, so, if she were given up, he would send her back unharmed and unhurt to her friends.