Manlius Torquātus, a celebrated Roman, whose youth was distinguished by a lively and cheerful disposition. These promising talents were, however, impeded by a difficulty of speaking; and the father, unwilling to expose his son’s rusticity at Rome, detained him in the country. The behaviour of the father was publicly censured, and Marius Pomponius the tribune cited him to answer for his unfatherly behaviour to his son. Young Manlius was informed of this, and with a dagger in his hand he entered the house of the tribune, and made him solemnly promise that he would drop the accusation. This action of Manlius endeared him to the people, and soon after he was chosen military tribune. In a war against the Gauls, he accepted the challenge of one of the enemy, whose gigantic stature and ponderous arms had rendered him terrible and almost invincible in the eyes of the Romans. The Gaul was conquered, and Manlius stripped him of his arms, and from the collar (torquis) which he took from the enemy’s neck, he was ever after surnamed Torquatus. Manlius was the first Roman who was raised to the dictatorship without having been previously consul. The severity of Torquatus to his son has been deservedly censured. This father had the courage and heart to put to death his son, because he had engaged one of the enemy, and obtained an honourable victory, without his previous permission. This uncommon rigour displeased many of the Romans; and though Torquatus was honoured with a triumph, and commended by the senate for his services, yet the Roman youth showed their disapprobation of the consul’s severity, by refusing him at his return the homage which every other conqueror received. Some time after the censorship was offered to him, but he refused it, observing that the people could not bear his severity, nor he the vices of the people. From the rigour of Torquatus, all edicts and actions of severity and justice have been called Manliana edicta. Livy, bk. 7, ch. 10.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 6, ch. 9.——Marcus, a celebrated Roman, whose valour was displayed in the field of battle, even at the early age of 16. When Rome was taken by the Gauls, Manlius with a body of his countrymen fled into the Capitol, which he defended when it was suddenly surprised in the night by the enemy. This action gained him the surname of Capitolinus, and the geese, which by their clamour had awakened him to arm himself in his own defence, were ever after held sacred among the Romans. A law which Manlius proposed to abolish the taxes on the common people, raised the senators against him. The dictator Cornelius Cossus seized him as a rebel, but the people put on mourning, and delivered from prison their common father. This did not in the least check his ambition; he continued to raise factions, and even secretly to attempt to make himself absolute, till at last the tribunes of the people themselves became his accusers. He was tried in the Campius Martius; but when the distant view of the Capitol which Manlius had saved seemed to influence the people in his favour, the court of justice was removed, and Manlius was condemned. He was thrown down from the Tarpeian rock, A.U.C. 371, and to render his ignominy still greater, none of his family were afterwards permitted to bear the surname of Marcus, and the place where his house had stood was deemed unworthy to be inhabited. Livy, bk. 5, ch. 31; bk. 6, ch. 5.—Florus, bk. 1, chs. 13 & 26.—Valerius Maximus, bk. 6, ch. 3.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 6, li. 825.——Imperiosus, father of Manlius Torquatus. He was made dictator. He was accused of detaining his son at home. See: [Manlius Torquatus].——Volsco, a Roman consul who received an army of Scipio in Asia, and made war against the Gallo-grecians, whom he conquered. He was honoured with a triumph at his return, though it was at first strongly opposed. Florus, bk. 3, ch. 11.—Livy, bk. 38, ch. 12, &c.——Caius, or Aulus, a senator sent to Athens to collect the best and wisest laws of Solon, A.U.C. 300. Livy, bk. 2, ch. 54; bk. 3, ch. 31.——Another, called also Cincinnatus. He made war against the Etrurians and Veientes with great success, and he died of a wound which he had received in a battle.——Another, who in his pretorship reduced Sardinia. He was afterwards made dictator.——Another, who was defeated by a rebel army of slaves in Sicily.——A pretor in Gaul, who fought against the Boii, with very little success.——Another, called Attilius, who defeated a Carthaginian fleet, &c.——Another, who conspired with Catiline against the Roman republic.——Another, in whose consulship the temple of Janus was shut.——Another, who was banished under Tiberius for his adultery.——A Roman appointed judge between his son Silanus and the province of Macedonia. When all the parties had been heard, the father said, “It is evident that my son has suffered himself to be bribed, therefore I deem him unworthy of the republic and of my house, and I order him to depart from my presence.” Silanus was so struck at the rigour of his father, that he hanged himself. Valerius Maximus, bk. 5, ch. 5.——A learned man in the age of Cicero.
Mannus, the son of Thiasto, both famous divinities among the Germans. Tacitus, Germania, ch. 2.
Julius Mansuētus, a friend of Vitellius, who entered the Roman armies, and left his son, then very young, at home. The son was promoted by Galba, and soon after met a detachment of the partisans of Vitellius in which his father was. A battle was fought, and Mansuetus was wounded by the hand of his son, &c. Tacitus, Histories, bk. 3, ch. 25.
Mantinea, a town of Arcadia in Peloponnesus. It was taken by Aratus and Antigonus, and, on account of the latter, it was afterwards called Antigonia. The emperor Adrian built there a temple in honour of his favourite Alcinous. It is famous for the battle which was fought there between Epaminondas at the head of the Thebans, and the combined forces of Lacedæmon, Achaia, Elis, Athens, and Arcadia, about 363 years before Christ. The Theban general was killed in the engagement, and from that time Thebes lost its power and consequence among the Grecian states. Strabo, bk. 8.—Cornelius Nepos, Epaminondas.—Diodorus, bk. 15.—Ptolemy, bk. 3, ch. 16.
Mantineus, the father of Ocalea, who married Abas the son of Lynceus and Hypermnestra. Apollodorus, bk. 2, ch. 9.
Mantinōrum oppidum, a town of Corsica, now supposed to be Bastia.
Mantius, a son of Melampus.
Manto, a daughter of the prophet Tiresias, endowed with the gift of prophecy. She was made prisoner by the Argives when the city of Thebes fell into their hands, and as she was the worthiest part of the booty, the conquerors sent her to Apollo the god of Delphi, as the most valuable present they could make. Manto, often called Daphne, remained for some time at Delphi, where she officiated as priestess, and where she gave oracles. From Delphi she came to Claros in Ionia, where she established an oracle of Apollo. Here she married Rhadius the sovereign of the country, by whom she had a son called Mopsus. Manto afterwards visited Italy, where she married Tiberinus the king of Alba, or, as the poets mention, the god of the river Tiber. From this marriage sprang Ocnus, who built a town in the neighbourhood, which, in honour of his mother, he called Mantua. Manto, according to a certain tradition, was so struck at the misfortunes which afflicted Thebes, her native country, that she gave way to her sorrow, and was turned into a fountain. Some suppose her to be the same who conducted Æneas into hell, and who sold the Sibylline books to Tarquin the Proud. She received divine honours after death. Virgil, Æneid, bk. 1, li. 199; bk. 10, li. 199.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 6, li. 157.—Diodorus, bk. 4.—Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 7.—Strabo, bks. 14 & 16.—Pausanias, bk. 9, chs. 10 & 33; bk. 7, ch. 3.
Mantua, a town of Italy beyond the Po, founded about 300 years before Rome, by Bianor or Ocnus the son of Manto. It was the ancient capital of Etruria. When Cremona, which had followed the interest of Brutus, was given to the soldiers of Octavius, Mantua also, which was in the neighbourhood, shared the common calamity, though it had favoured the party of Augustus, and many of the inhabitants were tyrannically deprived of their possessions. Virgil, who was among them, and a native of the town, and from thence often called Mantuanus, applied for redress to Augustus, and obtained it by means of his poetical talents. Strabo, bk. 5.—Virgil, Eclogues, poem 1, &c.; Georgics, ch. 3, li. 12; Æneid, bk. 10, li. 180.—Ovid, Amores, bk. 3, poem 15.
Maracanda, a town of Sogdiana.