Horatius Cocles opposed his single body to the whole army until the bridge was cut down behind him and then leaped into the river with his sword in his hand and came off safe to his party. There was a fellow questioned about a plot upon the life of a tyrant, and put to the torture to declare his confederates: he named, by one and one, all the tyrant’s friends that were about him: and still as they were named, they were put to death: the tyrant asked him at last if there were any more. “Yes,” says he, “yourself were in the plot; and now you have never another friend left in the world:” whereupon the tyrant cut the throats of his own guards. “He is the happy man that is the master of himself, and triumphs over the fear of death, which has overcome the conquerors of the world.”