page_title: Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
section_title: Son
hierarchical_section_title: Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus / Legend / Son
caption_attribution_description: English: Cincinnatus at Schönbrunn
context_page_description: Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was a Roman patrician, statesman, and military leader of the early Roman Republic who became a legendary figure of Roman virtue— particularly civic virtue —by the time of the Empire.
  Cincinnatus was a conservative opponent of the rights of the plebeians who fell into poverty because of his son's violent opposition to their desire for a written code of equitably enforced laws. Despite his old age, he worked his own small farm until an invasion prompted his fellow citizens to call for his leadership. He came from his plow to assume complete control over the state but, upon achieving a swift victory, relinquished his power and its perquisites and returned to his farm. His success and immediate resignation of his near-absolute authority with the end of this crisis has often been cited as an example of outstanding leadership, service to the greater good, civic virtue, humility, and modesty. As a result, he has inspired a number of organizations and other entities, some named in his honor.
context_section_description: In the traditional accounts of the story, Cincinnatus's son Caeso was an openly violent opponent of the attempts of the plebeians to enact the Terentilian Law, which sought to codify the Roman legal tradition and circumscribe the authority of the patrician consuls. Caeso would lead gangs to drive the Tribunes of the Plebs from the Forum, disrupting the procedures necessary to approve it. He was brought up on capital charges in 461 BC but released on a large bail. A plebeian named Marcus Volscius testified that his brother, while feeble from sickness, had been knocked down and injured by Caeso with such force that he later died. Rather than face his accusers in court, Caeso fled to the Etruscans. He was then condemned to death in absentia and his father subjected to a huge punitive fine, forcing him to sell most of his estates and to retire from public life to personally work a small farm (some accounts say Caeso was killed with Poplicola in the recovery of the Capitoline from Herdonius). Modern historians particularly reject the fine as a later invention inserted to explain the dictator's supposed poverty and heighten his virtues. Some reject the story in its entirety.
caption: The sculpture of Cincinnatus in Vienna's Schönbrunn Garden
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