Brewer's: Scaevola

[left-handed]. So Caius Mucius was called, because, when he entered the camp of Porsenna as a spy, and was taken before the king he deliberately held his hand over a lamp till it was burnt off, to show the Etruscan that he would not shrink from torture.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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