XXVIII.—CINCINNATUS.
1. In the course of the early Roman wars, Minucius, one of the consuls suffered himself to be cut off from Rome, in a narrow valley of Mount Algidus, and it seemed as if hope of delivery there was none. However, five horsemen found means to escape and report at Rome the perilous condition of the consul and his army. Then the other consul consulted the senate, and it was agreed that the only man who could deliver the army was Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. He was thereupon named dictator, and deputies were sent to acquaint him with his high dignity.
2. He was called Cincinnatus, because he wore his hair in long curling locks, cincinni, and, though he was a patrician he lived on his own small farm, like any plebeian yeoman. This farm was beyond the Tiber, and here he lived contentedly with his wife Racilia.
3. Two years before he had been consul, and had been brought into great distress by the conduct of his son, Kæso. This Kæso was a Wild and insolent young man, who despised the plebeians and hated their tribunes. One Volscius Fictor alleged that he and his brother, an old and sickly man, had been attacked by Kæso and a party of young patricians by night, and that his brother had died of the treatment then received. The indignation of the people rose high; and Kæso was forced to go into exile. After this the young patricians became more insolent than ever, but they courted the poorest of the people, hoping to engage them on their side against the more respectable plebeians.
4. Next year all Rome was alarmed by finding that the Capitol had been seized by an enemy during the night. This enemy was Appius Herdonius, a Sabine, and with him was associated a band of desperate men, exiles and runaway slaves. The first demand he made was that all Roman exiles should be restored. The consul, P. Valerius, collected a force and took the Capitol, but was killed in the assault, and Cincinnatus, father of the banished Kæso, was chosen to succeed him. When he heard the news of his elevation, he turned to his wife, and said: "I fear, Racilia, our little field must remain this year unsown." Then he assumed the robe of state, and went to Rome. It was believed that Kæso had been concerned in the desperate enterprise that had just been defeated. What had become of him was unknown; but that he was already dead was pretty certain; and his father was very bitter against the tribunes and their party, to whom he attributed his son's disgrace and death.
5. P. Valerius, the consul, had persuaded the plebeians to join in the assault of the Capitol, by promising to gain them further privileges; this promise Cincinnatus refused to keep, and used all his power to frustrate the attempts of the tribunes to gain its fulfillment. At the end of his year of office, however, when the patricians wished to continue him in the consulship, he positively declined the offer, and returned to his rustic life as if he had never left it.
6. It was two years after these events that the deputies of the senate, who came to invest him with the ensigns of dictatorial power, found him working on his little farm. He was clad in his tunic only, and as the deputies advanced they bade him put on his toga, that he might receive the commands of the senate in seemly guise. So he wiped off the dust and sweat, and bade his wife fetch his toga, and asked anxiously whether all was right or no. Then the deputies told him how the army was beset by the Æquian foe, and how the Senate looked to him as the savior of the state. A boat was provided to carry him over the Tiber; and when he reached the other bank, he was greeted by his family and friends, and the greater part of the senate, who followed him to the city, while he himself walked in state, with his four and twenty lictors.
7. That same day the dictator and his master of horse came down into the forum, ordered all shops to be shut, and all business to be suspended. All men of the military age were to meet in the Field of Mars before sunset, each man with five days' provisions and twelve stakes; the older men were to get the provisions ready, while the soldiers were preparing the stakes. Thus all was got ready in time: the dictator led them forth; and they marched so rapidly, that by midnight they had reached Mount Algidus, where the army of the consul was hemmed in.
8. Then the dictator, when he had discovered the place of the enemy's army, ordered his men to put all their baggage down in one place, and then to surround the enemy's camp. They obeyed, and each one raising a shout, began digging the trench and fixing his stakes, so as to form a palisade round the enemy. The consul's army, which was hemmed in, heard the shout of their brethren, and flew to arms; and so hotly did they fight all night, that the Æquians had no time to attend to the new foe, and next morning found themselves hemmed in on all sides by the trench and palisade, so that they were now between two Roman armies. They were thus forced to surrender. The dictator required them to give up their chiefs, and made their whole army pass under the yoke, which was formed by two spears fixed upright in the ground, and a third bound across them at the top.