For the 4th Day of White History Month we celebrate the earliest savior of Rome, Gaius Mucius Cordus, who prevented his young cities subjugation with a singular act of courage.

In 509 BC the fifth and last King of Rome, a tyrant named Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, was deposed by the cities nobles for the rape and murder of a young noble woman. In 508 BC, the neighboring Etruscan King Lars Porsena laid siege to Rome, seeking to subdue the revolutionary city-state. Rome was in its early development and was unprepared to repel the then more powerful Etruscan civilization.

A young man named Gaius Mucius Cordus volunteered to sneak into the Etruscan camp and assassinate King Porsena. After making it into the camp and killing the king's scribe, Gaius was captured and brought before the king. Porsena threatened to burn him alive. Gaius replied; "I am Gaius Mucius, citizen of Rome. I came here as an enemy to kill my enemy, and I am as ready to die as I am to kill. We Romans act bravely and, when adversity strikes, we suffer bravely. There are hundreds more Roman youths prepared to do no less. Watch, so that you know how cheap the body is to men who have their eye on great glory."

He stuck his right hand into the fire and stared at the king unflinchingly as it burned and melted away. Porsena, shocked, dismissed him from their camp, saying "Go back, since you do more harm to yourself than me". The king then sent peace envoys to Rome. Gaius was hailed as a hero upon his return, given the moniker "Scaevola" meaning "left-handed" and granted farm land on the right-hand bank of the Tiber, which became known as the "Mucia Prata" or "Mucian Meadows". Gaius appears in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. In Paradiso, Canto 4: 82–87, Mucius is depicted as a person possessing the rarest and firmest of wills.