Lars Porsena

But it is to the blood-stained soldier returning from the front that men cry, Well done, thou hero! And therefore I should bestow greater praise upon those goods that have stood trial and show courage and have fought it out with fortune.

Should I hesitate whether to give greater praise to the maimed and shrivelled hand of Mucius than to the uninjured hand of the bravest man in the world? There stood Mucius, despising the enemy and despising the fire, and washed his hand as it dripped blood over the fire on his enemy's altar, until Porsenna, envying the fame of the hero whose punishment he was advocating, ordered the fire to be removed against the will of the victim.

Why should I not reckon this good among the primary goods, and deem it in so far greater than those other goods which are unattended by danger and have made no trial of fortune, as it is a rarer thing to have overcome a foe with a hand lost than with a hand armed? What then, you see, shall you desire this good for yourself? Of course I shall.

For this is a thing that a man cannot achieve unless he can also desire it.

Is it not known that Nicomedes, king of Lycia, in his eagerness for the Venus that was by the hand of Praxiteles, spent on it almost all the wealth of his people? Did not Attalus the same, who, in order to possess the picture of Bacchus painted by Aristides, did not scruple to spend on it more than six thousand sesterces; which picture was placed by Lucius Mummius in the temple of Ceres with the greatest pomp, in order to adorn Rome? But for all that the nobility of these arts was so highly valued, it is nonetheless not yet known for certain who gave them their first beginning.

For, as has been already said above, it appears most ancient among the Chaldeans; some give it to the Ethiopians, and the Greeks attribute it to themselves; and it may be thought, not without reason, that it is perchance even more ancient among the Etruscans, as our Leon Battista Alberti testifies, whereof we have clear enough proof in the marvellous tomb of Porsenna at Chiusi, where, no long time since, there were discovered underground, between the walls of the labyrinth, some terracotta tiles with figures on them in half relief, so excellent and in so beautiful a manner that it can be easily recognized that the art was not begun precisely at that time; nay, rather, by reason of the perfection of these works, that it was much nearer its height than its beginning.

To this, moreover, witness is likewise borne by our seeing every day many pieces of those red and black vases of Arezzo, made, as may be judged from the manner, about those times, with the most delicate carvings and small figures and scenes in low relief, and many small round masks wrought with great subtlety by masters of that age, men most experienced, as is shown by the effect, and most excellent in that art.

The hardest part was figuring out where to go.