Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus : born about 519 BC, died about 430 BC in Rome

Cincinnatus abandons its plow
to dictate the laws of Rome
Juan Antonio Ribera

An illustrious Roman of patrician family, who was contented to live on a small farm; and who was even called from the plough to be consul and dictator. He died about the year 316 of the city, and 438 years before Christ.

The Quintian family, from whom Cincinnatus was descended, was allied to many of the noblest and most illustrious members of the Roman senate. Unambitious, however, of those honours which, in general, are highly esteemed and ardently sought by mankind; and devoted to a life of peace and retirement, he passed much of his time at a small paternal farm which he possessed, near the bank of the Tiber, opposite to Rome. At this farm he educated his son, Caeso Quintius, who is described to have been elegant in his person, of distinguished bravery, eloquent, ambitious, and enterprising.

Caeso took so decided a part with the Roman nobility against the plebeians; inveighed, on all occasions, so bitterly, against their proceedings; and, in various respects, gave them so much offence, that the tribunes resolved, if possible, to punish him, lest his conduct should operate as an example to other Roman youth. They accused him of crimes against the state;-of a conspiracy, with the patricians, to destroy the tribunes, and put the people to the sword. But they were unable to establish any proof of his criminality. Evidence was then offered, to prove that he had been guilty of murder; but this evidence was afterwards shown to have been false. The trial was, for the present, deferred; security, to a great amount, being taken for his appearance at a future day. On the day appointed he did not appear: he was, consequently, condemned to perpetual banishment, and his securities were forfelted.

The conduct of Cincinnatus, on this occasion, has been universally admired. He sold the greatest part of his property, and, from the produce, repaid, to the sureties, the sums in which they had been bound; leaving nothing to himself but his cottage, and about four acres of land, which were afterwards distinguished by the name of the "Quintian Meadow!" In this cottage he continued to reside; and he supported himself and his wife on the produce of his labour. Thus did be subject himself to a life of penury, rather than his family should be disgraced by any supposed deficiency on the part of his son. His detestation of the conduct of the Romans respecting his son, is, however, imagined to have had so powerful an influence on his mind, that, for some time, he refused even to visit the city.

Such was, at this period, the inefficient state of the Roman government, that four thousand five hundred fugitive slaves, headed by a Sabine, named Herdonius, having, during the night, surprised the capitol and the adjoining fortress, entertained hopes, through the assistance of the Roman slaves, and by the population declaring in their favour, to obtain possession of the city. The consuls, alarmed lest a general insurrection of the plebeians might follow, did not dare to distribute arms among the people. They were also fearful lest this procedure might have been adopted in conjunction with their enemies, the Volsci and AEqui. The consul Valerius succeeded, indeed, in retaking the capitol; but, in the act of recovering it, he was killed.

Notwithstanding the disgrace which, in the minds of the people, had fallen upon Caeso, they highly revered the character of his father. The talents and the integrity of Cincinnatus were well known. It was consequently resolved, if possible, to draw him, from his seclusion, to the duties of the state. He was elected consul, in the room of Valerius; and the senate sent a deputation, to desire that he would immediately come to Rome, for the purpose of taking ossession of the magistracy. The deputies found him in the act of ploughing his land, without a vest; his waist girded, and a cap on his head. Observing several persons enter the field, he stopped his plough, unable to conjecture what their business with him could be. One of them approached, and, having requested that he would clothe himself in a more becoming manner, for the purpose of receiving a deputation from the senate, he retired into his cottage. On his return they saluted him, not by his name, but as consul; and, having clad him in the consular robe, and placed before him the axes and other ensigns of his oflice, they requested him to follow them to the city. He did so, but not without unaffected regret at exchanging his humble cottage for a palace, and his quiet and domestic pursuits, for the troubles and the honours of the state. He was now in his fifty-eighth year.

On entering upon his office, the plebeians were fearful lest they should feel the weight of his vengeance, in return for their conduct towards his son. He freely and justly censured them; but his censures were as severe against the senate as the people. By the indolence and negligence of the senate, he said, the tribunes, whose office had now become perpetual, had been permitted to exercise almost sovereign authority. He asserted that "the government could no longer be considered a republic of Roman citizens, but as an ill-regulated family: that, with his son Caeso, fortitude, constancy, and every qualification which gives ornament to youth, either in war or in peace, had been banished from the city; while mere declaimers, men despicable for their seditious propensities, and for exciting dissensionsin the state, twice, and even thrice re-elected tribunes, had been enabled to excite general unhappiness by their pernicious practices, and in the exercise even of'regal tyranny."

For some time he experienced great opposition, both from the tribunes and the people; but this did not prevent him from acting with that firmness, for which his whole character was remarkable. The incessant commotions in the state were such as might have deterred a man of less powerful mind than his, from fully performing his duty. This, however, he is believed to have done; and, by so doing, be overawed the disaffected, suppressed the rising seditions, and kept all parties at peace.

In the tribunals of justice, he acted with equal integrity, prudence, and mercy; and his decisions were so equitable, that they were, in general, assented to, even by the parties against whom they were given. He was easy of access, mild and humane towards all.

By conduct of this description be greatly raised the character of the aristocracy, in the public estimation: the prejudices which had existed against himself, gradually vanished; and he at length received the merited applause of all classes. Indeed, so great became his popularity, that, at the expiration of his office, the consulate was offered to him a second time. He, however, not only refused to accept it, but he severely reproved the senate for the offer: it was a breach of their own decree, that no citizen should serve the same office for two successive years. After this he returned to his cottage, and contentedly resumed his former tranquil and unambitions pursuits.

About twelve months after this, and in the year of the city, 295, during a war with the AEqui and the Sabines, the consul, Minutius, had the imprudence to suffer his army to be led into a valley, where it was surrounded by a superior force of the AEqui; and the other consul, being employed against the Sabines, was unable to afford him any relief. In this emergency it was considered requisite to create a dictator; and no man appeared, in the general estimation, so fitted to this office as Cincinnatus; he was, consequently, appointed.

Deputies from the senate, in this as in the former instance, were sent to announce to him his appointment. These found him engaged in the occupations of husbandry. At their approach he retired into his house; and, having clad himself in more becoming apparel, than that which he had previously worn, he went to meet them. They presented to him horses decked with magnificent trappings, placed before him the four-and-twenty axes with the rods, clothed him in a purple robe, and announced to him that he had been selected, in the present adverse state of public affairs, to fill the office of dictator. This high office, which would have been so desirable to many, was to him a source of grief. He well knew all the responsibility, and all the difficulties that were attached to it. But, when his country demanded his services, Cincinnatus was too sincere a patriot to refuse them.

A vessel had been prepared, by order of the go vernment, to convey him across the river. On landing near Rome, he was received first by his relatives and friends, and afterwards by a great num her of the patricians. Accompanied by this retinue, and having the lictors marching in state before him, he was conducted to his appointed residence.

The spirits of the Romans had been deeply depressed; but Cincinnatus revived their hopes. He taught them to believe that, with courage and unanimity, all would yet be well. It was, however, requisite that they should act with promptness and decision. He issued a proclamation, ordering an immediate suspension of all proceedings in the courts of justice, the shops to be shut, and all the citizens, capable of bearing arms, to assemble in the Campus Martius, before sunset, each with five day's provisions, and twelve stakes for a palisade. His orders were punctually obeyed. The forces were drawn up; and the dictator marched at the head of the infantry, and his general of horse as the commander of the cavalry. Cincinnatus halted as soon as be perceived that he was near the enemy. In the obscurity of the night he examined, as well as he was able, the state of the enemy's camp. As soon as he had ascertained this, he ordered his men to heap all their baggage into one place, and then to return to their ranks, with the stakes they had brought from Rome. This done, he caused them to invest one side of the enemy's camp; and, at an appointed signal, every man began to dig a trench before him, and to plant his stakes. The enemy made an effort to interrupt the works which the dictator had begun: This enabled the forces under Minutius to act; and the enemy, utter a vain struggle to liberate themselves from the difficulties by which they were embarrassed, being destitute of provisions, and despairing of relief, sent to Cincinnatus a deputation to sue for peace, which, on conditions advantageous to the Romans, was granted. His success being complete, he returned to Rome, and triumphed with greater splendour that any preceding general; for, within the short space of sixteen days, he had rescued the Roman consul and legions from a state of extreme distress, and had defeated a numerous and powerful army. The senate decreed that, on his arrival in Rome, he should enter the city in triumph, without changing the order of his march. The generals of the enemy's army were led, in chains, before his chariot, accompanied by the military ensigns; and his own troops followed, laden with spoil. It is stated that tables were spread with provisions before every house, for the refreshment of his men, after their toils.

The consill Minutius was deposed, as unequal to fulfil the duties of the command to which he had been appointed; and was reduced to the rank of a lieutenant-general.

The army voted, to the dictator, the reward of a golden crown, a pound in weight, and saluted him as their patron and preserver. And the senate, considering it disgraceful to the state that so eminent, a man should pass his old age in poverty, entreated of him to accept whatever quantity of land he chose from the conquered lands of the enemy, and that he would allow them to supply him with money and cattle sufficient to stock it. His friends also offered him valuable presents, wishing it to be considered that the favour would be esteemed in the receiving, not the giving of them. His independent spirit would not, however, permit him to receive any favour. But, after thanking them for these mark of their attachment, and these tokens of satisfaction for the services he had been able to perform, he assembled the people, and having rendered to them an account of his administration, he resigned the dictatorship, after having held it only three weeks. He had been solicitous only for the public good: his own aggrandizement constituted, in no degree, the foundation of his actions; and, consequently, to have retained his office for the full period to which he might have held it, was not an object at all desirable by him. With the satisfaction of a mind conscious of its own integrity, and wholly free from ambitious desires, he returned to his farm, and willingly exchanged even princely honours for manual labour; glorying more in his poverty and independence, than others did in their wealth and their rank.

The only favour he would accept from the public, was a revocation of the unjust sentence which had been pronounced against his son. Nor ought this to have been considered a favour, for it was proved that Volscius, one of the tribunes, the man on whose evidence he had been convicted, had been guilty of wilful and corrupt perjury. .

In the following year, the united forces of the Sabines and AEqui made another irruption into the Roman territory, plundering and destroying the property of the inhabitants, through the whole line of their march. The senate, desirous of checking their progress, resolved that the consuls should immediately take the field and march against them. This plan was strongly opposed by the tribunes of the people. More anxious for the extension of their own power and privileges, than for the welfare of the country, they refused their consent, unless the senate would first agree to pass a law, increasing their number from five to ten. The senate would not do this, as they considered it would be giving too great a preponderance to the popular branch of the legislature, already so powerful as to be almost beyond control. The most violent commotions ensued, during which, the territories, both of the Romans and their allies, were alike laid waste and plundered.

The enemy rendered desert, all the country through which they passed, in a confidence that no army would be sent against him, during the contests which they knew to be raging in the city. Notwithstanding the distress into which the country was thus plunged, the tribunes persisted in their opposition. The state of the public affairs at length became so critical, that Cincinnatus was induced again to appear in the senate. He entreated that the tribunes would, for the present, defer the consideration of the law; as the enemy was almost at their gates, and ought to be immediately opposed. The tribunes were not, however, to be shaken in their projects, by any concern for the public welfare; and the senate, fearful of the consequences of further delay, were obliged to yield their consent. Having thus succeeded in their designs, the tribunes completed the levies, and the consuls, being enabled to march against the enemy, drove them out of the country.

From this period, for nearly twenty years, Cincinnatus was induced frequently to engage in the affairs of the state; and his conduct was invariably marked by anxiety for the public welfare; and by mildness, and equity towards the people. In more than one instance he saved the lives of even those furious tribunes, who had headed the party which was in opposition to himself.

In the year of the city 813?, the Romans were afflicted with almost every species of domestic scourge; with famine, pestilence, sedition, and conspiracies. During this calamity, Spurius Maelius, a Roman knight, possessed of great wealth, purchased a vast quantity of corn at foreign markets, and ordered it to be distributed gratis, or to be sold, at a very low price, to the poor. By this apparent liberality, he ad seduced, to his cause, so great a number of the most idle and dissolute of the people, as to endanger the safety of the state. He acted, as nearly all other demagogues have acted: he imposed upon the ignorance of the people, by inducing them to believe that he was studying only their happiness; while, in fact, all his pretended kindness was but a cover for the promotion of his own interested views. He was contemplating, through their agency, the acquisition of even sovereign power.

In this state of affairs it was that Cincinnatus, though now more than eighty years of age, was again called from his cottage, to assume the office of dictator; and, old as he was, he performed this duty with great firmness. He summoned Maelius to appear in the forum; but the knight, conscious of his guilt, and Foreseeing the danger to which he would be exposed, under any examination into the motives of his conduct, attempted to escape. Servilius Ahala, the general of horse, who had received orders to arrest him, pursued and killed him. In this act he was justified by one of the Roman laws, which authorized the putting of any man to death, even without the form of a trial, who had aspired to the sovereign power. The dictator had no difficulty in clearly establishing the guilt of Maelius. He consequently applauded the deed; and the people did not much object to it, for they considered themselves, in some degree, recompensed for the loss of their benefactor, by the quantity of corn which was found in his house, and was distributed among them at a very low price. The dictator, on this occasion, further gratified them, by commanding all the property of Maelius to be sold, and its whole produce to be distributed among the people.

Cincinnatus did not long survive this termination of a conspiracy, which many feared would occasion the total overthrow of the government. He died, sincerely regretted by his fellow-citizens; and with a consciousness of having been eminently useful to the state of which he had so long been a member. Never had he accepted any pecuniary recompense for his services to the public. By his example, he had shown that the great qualification for doing good does not depend upon wealth, but upon a contented, a noble, and an independent spirit, which itself requiring no superfluities, leaves its owner at full liberty to serve his fellow-creatures. "That man (as Plutarch admirably remarks) is unfit for great acts, who aims at little objects; nor can he relieve the many needy, who himself needs many things."

Authorities-Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Livy, and Hooke's Roman History.