Horatius Cocles

[3] He was a nephew of the consul, Marcus Horatius Pulvillus, and is said to have obtained his agnomen, Cocles, meaning "one-eyed",[i] because he lost an eye in the Battle of the Sublician Bridge.

Concentrating his forces on the Etruscan (west) side of the Tiber, Porsena assaulted Janiculum hill and seized it and all its materiel from the terrified Roman guard.

Octavius Mamilius commanded the Etruscan right wing consisting of rebel Latins; they faced Romans under Marcus Valerius Volusus and Titus Lucretius Tricipitinus.

[7] Dionysius' account explains, "Herminius and Lartius, their defensive arms being now rendered useless by the continual blows they received, began to retreat gradually."

[ii][7] Polybius' account uses Horatius as an example of the men who have "devoted themselves to inevitable death...to save the lives of other citizens....[H]e threw himself into the river with his armor, and there lost his life as he had designed.

Florus tacitly acknowledges the extraordinary nature of the story: "It was on this occasion that those three prodigies and marvels of Rome made their appearance, Horatius, Mucius and Cloelia, who, were they not recorded in our annals, would seem fabulous characters at the present day.

Livy viewed the story as legendary, dubious of Horatius' fully armed swim, noting "though many missiles fell over him he swam across in safety to his friends, an act of daring more famous than credible with posterity.

Napoleon, after the battle of Klausen, nicknamed General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas "The Horatius Cocles of Tyrol" for his solo defense of a bridge over the River Eisack.

Winston Churchill wrote that while he "stagnated in the lowest form" at Harrow, he gained a prize open to the whole school by reciting the whole "twelve hundred lines" of "Horatius".

Horatius figures prominently in Jessie Pope's 1915 poem "The Longest Odds" about the exploits of a highlander who single-handedly clears an entire German trench before being killed.

Horatius Cocles, a fanciful 1586 engraving by Hendrick Goltzius .
Siege of Rome by the Etruscans under Lars Porsena . This animated depiction shows the phases of the battle, including the defense of the bridge by Horatius.
Anachronistic map of Rome, with dark lines marking the city walls; the innermost wall is the relevant Servian Wall , the outer wall does not yet exist. The Naevian Gate (indicated) in the Servian Wall leads to the Pons Sublicius bridge across the Tiber. Janiculum Hill is to the west, just beyond the map; between the hill and the bridge is the Naevian Meadow.
Detail from the Ghisi Shield in the Waddesdon Bequest ; a grotesque head in the larger scale above Horatius at the bridge in the smaller
15th-century miniature