Mucius Scaevola

  The story of Mucius Scaevola is an interesting one in deed. It is the tale of a brave Roman youth during the early days of the Roman Republic, who becomes a hero for his botched assassination attempt on the life of a king laying siege to Rome. Mucius Scaevola is credited with saving Rome No one knows exactly what is true and what is not. 

            The legend of Mucius Scaevola (full name Gaius Mucius Scaevola) is best known from the “History of Rome from its Foundation” by Livy and Roman Antiquities by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Both Livy and Dionysius wrote their accounts during the reign of Emperor Augustus, but the story is at least a century older.

The general story is this: in the early years of the Roman Republic (the exact year is different in in multiple accounts but the Oxford Dictionary names 509 B.C. as the year), the Etruscan King Lars Porsenna lays siege to Rome in an attempt to restore power to the Etruscan Kings and restore the last king, Tarquin the Proud. During the siege, Mucius Scaevola, a young Roman of noble birth, sneaks into Porsenna’s camp and attempts to kill Porsenna. However, instead of killing Porsenna, he kills one of Porsenna’s secretaries. He is caught and brought before the Etruscan Royal Tribunal. There, Mucius declares that he is one of 300 noble youths who had sworn to take Porsenna’s life, and he refused to betray any of them. He shows his lack of fear for torture and pain by thrusting his right hand into a fire (some accounts say an altar, others a campfire), and holding it there while his flesh burned. Porsenna, greatly impressed by his bravery orders Mucius to be released and fearing another attempt on his life, decides to open negotiations with the Romans. Peace is restored, and Mucius is named a hero, earning the surname Scaevola, which means “left hand”, and a generous plot of land west of the River, called the Mucia Prata, or “Mucian Meadows”.

            As with most legends, there are many variants and inconsistencies in the story. Livy claims that Mucius killed the secretary because he was better dressed than the king, and Dionysus doesn’t mention Mucius’ hand burning altogether. Additionally, there are problems with the story. Because the story deals with the burning of the right hand (which was a punishment for a traitor or an oath breaker), it is speculated that the original story was about how someone was punished but showed no fear or pain. The part about the attempt to kill Porsenna must have been from a later addition of the story, and the presence of secretaries near the king suggests a date around the third century. There are several parallels to this legend from Greek mythology as well, such as the story of Codrus of Athens entering an enemy camp, which suggests further that the story of Mucius Scaevola is mostly made up.