XVIII.  Poplicola, who did not think Porsena so terrible as an enemy as he would be valuable as a friend and ally, was willing that he should decide the quarrel between the Romans and Tarquin, and often proposed that he should do so, feeling sure that he would discover him to be a wretch who had been most deservedly dethroned.  But Tarquin roughly answered that he would submit his claims to no judge, and least of all to Porsena, who had been his ally and now seemed inclined to desert him.  Porsena was angered at this, and, as his son Aruns also pleaded hard for the Romans, put an end to the war upon condition that they should give up the portion of Etruscan territory which they had seized, restore their prisoners, and receive back their deserters.  Upon this, ten youths of the noblest families were given as hostages, and as many maidens, among whom was Valeria, the daughter of Poplicola.

XIX.  While these negotiations were going on, and Porsena, through his confidence in the good faith of the Romans, had relaxed the discipline of his camp, these Roman maidens came down to bathe in the river at a place where a bank, in the form of a crescent, makes the water smooth and undisturbed.  As they saw no guards, nor any one passing except in boats, they determined to swim across, although the stream was strong and deep.  Some say that one of them, by name Cloelia, rode on a horse across the river, encouraging the others as they swam.  When they had got safe across they went to Poplicola, but he was displeased with them because it made him seem more faithless than Porsena, and he feared lest this daring feat of the maidens might be suspected of being a preconcerted plot of the Romans.  For these reasons he sent them back to Porsena.  Now Tarquin and his party, foreseeing that this would be done, laid an ambush on the further bank and attacked those who were escorting the girls with superior numbers.  Still they made a stout defence, and meanwhile Valeria, the daughter of Poplicola, made her way through the combatants and escaped, and three slaves who also got away took care of her.  The others were mixed up with the fight, and were in considerable danger, when Aruns, Porsena’s son, came to the rescue, put the enemy to the rout, and saved the Romans.  When the girls were brought before Porsena, he asked which it was that had conceived the attempt to escape and encouraged the others.  Being told that it was Cloelia, he smiled kindly upon her, and presented her with one of his own horses, splendidly caparisoned.  This is relied upon by those who say that it was Cloelia alone who rode on horseback over the river, as proving their case.  Others say that it was not because she used a horse, but to honour her manly spirit that the Etruscan king made her this present.  A statue of her, on horseback, stands in the Sacred Way as you go up to the Palatine Hill, which by some is said not to be a statue of Cloelia, but of Valeria.