Cloelia

a Roman virgin, who was one of the hostages given to Porsena with other maidens and boys, is said to have escaped from the Etruscan camp, and to have swum across the Tiber to Rome. She was sent back by the Romans to Porsena, who was so struck with her gallant deed, that he not only set her at liberty, but allowed her to take with her a part of the hostages: she chose those who were under age, as they were most exposed to ill-treatment. Porsena also rewarded her with a horse adorned with splendid trappings, and the Roman people with the statue of a female on horseback, which was erected in the Sacred Way. Another tradition, of far less celebrity, related, that all the hostages were massacred by Tarquinius with the exception of Valeria, who swum over the Tiber and escaped to Rome, and that the equestrian statue was erected to her, and not to Cloelia. (Liv. 2.13; Dionys. A. R. 5.33; Plut. Poplic. 19, Illustr. Fem. s. vv. Valeria et Cloelia; Flor. 1.10; V. Max. 3.2.2; Aurel. Vict. de Vir. III. 13; Dio Cass. in Bekker's Anecd. i. p. 133. 8; Plin. Nat. 34.6. s. 13; Verg. A. 8.651; Juv. 8.265.)

or Clui'lia GENS, patrician, of Alban origin, was one of the gentes minores, and was said to have derived its name from Clolius, a companion of Aeneas. (Festus, s. v. Cloelia.) The name of the last king of Alba is said to have been C. Cluilius or Cloelius. He led an army against Rome in the time of Tullus Hostilius, pitched his camp five miles from the city, and surrounded his encampment with a ditch, which continued to be called after him, in subsequent ages, Fossa Cluilia, Fossae Cluiliae, or Fossae Cloeliae. While here, he died, and the Albans chose Mettus Fuffetius as dictator, in consequence of whose treachery the Romans destroyed Alba. Niebuhr, however, remarks, that though the Fossa Cluilia was undoubtedly the work of an Alban prince called Cluilius, yet that the story of the Albar army encamping there was probably invented for the sake of accounting for this name. (Liv. 1.22, 23; Dionys. A. R. 3.2_4; Festus, s. v. Cloeliae Fossae; comp. Liv. 2.39; Dionys. A. R. 8.22; Niebuhr, vol. i. pp. 204, 348, n. 870.)

Upon the destruction of Alba, the Cloelii were one of the noble Alban houses enrolled in the Roman senate. (Liv. 1.30; Dionys. A. R. 3.29.) They bore the surname Siculus, probably because the Albans were regarded as a mixture of Siculians with Priscans. Tullus was perhaps another cognomen of this gens. See Cloelius Tullus.

The following coin of this gens contains on the obverse the head of Pallas, and on the reverse Victory in a biga, with the inscription T. Clovli, Cloulius being an ancient form of the name.

A Roman virgin, given as a hostage to Porsenna. According to the old Roman legend, when Porsenna and the Romans made a peace after the affair of Mucius Scaevola (q.v.), the latter people gave hostages to the king—ten youths and ten maidens, children of noble parents—as a pledge that they would truly keep the peace which had been proclaimed. It happened, as the camp of the Etrurians was near the Tiber, that Cloelia, one of the maidens, escaped with her companions and fled to the brink of the river; and, as the Etrurians pursued them, they all rushed into the water and swam in safety across the stream. But the Romans, jealous of their reputation for good faith, sent them all back to the camp of Porsenna. Not to be outdone in generosity, the monarch gave her and her female companions their freedom, and permitted her to take with her half of the youths; whereupon, with the delicacy of a Roman maiden, she selected those only who were of tender years. The Romans raised an equestrian statue in her honour on the highest part of the Via Sacra (Liv.ii. 13). There is another story, that Tarquinius fell upon the hostages as they were conducted into the Etrurian camp, and with the exception of Valeria, who fled back to the city, massacred them all (Plin.xxxiv. 13).