Lars Porsena

One story tells that, during his siege of Rome, a Roman youth named Gaius Mucius sneaked into the Etruscan camp with the approval of the Senate, intent on assassinating Porsena.

To prove his valour, Mucius then thrust his right hand into a sacrificial fire, thereby earning for himself and his descendants the cognomen Scaevola ("lefty").

One of the hostages, a young woman named Cloelia, fled the Etruscan camp, leading away a group of Roman virgins.

[10] In 508 BC, after the siege of Rome, Porsena split his forces and sent part of the Clusian army with his son Aruns to besiege the Latin city of Aricia.

Pliny the Elder describes Porsena's tomb as having a 50 Roman foot high rectangular base with sides 300 feet long (approx.

[11] Porsena's tomb would have been razed to the ground together with the rest of the city of Clusium in 89 BC by the Roman general Cornelius Sulla.

The story of Lars Porsenna and the Roman hostage Cloelia is the basis of the libretto Il trionfo di Clelia (1762) by Pietro Metastasio.

The Etruscan king also supplies the title of Graves' essay Lars Porsena or The Future of Swearing and Improper Language (1927).