Cincinnatus

Cincinnatus, LUCIUS QUINCTIUS, a favourite hero of the old Roman republic, regarded by the later Romans as a pattern of antique virtue and simple manners. In 460 B.C. he was chosen consul, and two years later was made dictator. When the messengers from Rome came to tell Cincinnatus of his new dignity they found him ploughing on his small farm. He soon rescued the consul Lucius Minucius, who had been defeated and surrounded by the Æqui, but Livy's account of the mode in which the deliverance was effected contains inconsistencies which did not escape the critical eye of Niebuhr. Sixteen days after, he laid down his dictatorship and returned to his small farm on the Tiber. At the age of eighty he was once more made dictator to deal with the alleged treasonable conspiracy of the great plebeian, Sp. Mælius.