Titus Manlius Torquatus ( dictator ) Titus Manlius Torquatus , son of Titus ( or Titus Manlius T . f . Torquatus ) , was Roman Republican consul 235 BC and 224 BC , censor 231 BC , and dictator 208 BC . Family background . The Manlii were one of the oldest and most distinguished patrician " gentes " in the Roman Republic . One Gnaeus Manlius Cincinnatus had been chosen consul in 480 BC , four years after the first Fabius had become consul . Prominent consuls in the family included the early 4th century consul Marcus Manlius T . f . Capitolinus ( whose career was marked by his " gens " banning the use of the " praenomen " " Marcus " thereafter ) , and the 4th century consul Titus Manlius L . f . Imperiosus Torquatus . Titus was descended from this last consul , notable not only for his military successes but also for executing his own son for an impetuous breach of military discipline . It is not clear if the consul Aulus Manlius Titus f . Torquatus Atticus was Titus ' s elder brother . Political career . In his first consulship in 235 BC , with Gaius Atilius A . f . Bulbus as his co - consul , he subjugated Sardinia , recently acquired from the Carthaginians . After this war , the temple of Janus was shut for the second time in Roman history ( Livy 1 . 9 ) , meaning that Rome was at peace , not war . He was then elected censor with Quintus Fulvius Flaccus in 231 BC , and apparently did not complete the " lustrum " ( ritual cleansing of the Roman state ) , because new censors were elected in 230 BC . ( Torquatus might have fallen out with his colleague and resigned , or the omens might have been considered inauspicious , forcing both censors to resign ) . In 224 BC , he was elected consul again , this time with his censorial colleague Flaccus . In 216 BC , as one of the most senior senators then living , he successfully opposed the ransoming of the Romans taken prisoners at the Battle of Cannae , on the grounds that they had made no effort to break out of the Carthaginian lines . In 215 BC he was sent to Sardinia , after the illness of Quintus Mucius Scaevola and defeated a Carthaginian attempt under Hasdrubal the Bald to regain possession of the island . However , he also suffered a number of reverses . In 212 BC , he and Flaccus contested for the position of Pontifex Maximus ( chief priest of Rome ) , and lost to a younger and less distinguished man Publius Licinius Crassus . It is unclear from Livy ' s account if Licinius Crassus benefited from the inevitable division of votes between the two ex - censors , or whether he was always ahead . In 210 BC , he was the oldest living patrician senator who had been censor earliest , but he was not chosen Princeps Senatus . The censor Publius Sempronius Tuditanus preferred that the honor go to the most distinguished senior senator , who was in his view , Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucoses Cunctator , a man who had been first consul in 233 BC and censor in 230 BC . The other censor Marcus Cornelius Cethegus preferred to go by the " mos maiorum " , but the choice was Tuditanus ' s to make . It is not clear when Torquatus died , but he was probably not living in 202 BC when Scipio defeated Hannibal at Zama . Torquatus ' s speech on the Roman prisoners . Livy reproduces the gist of Torquatus ' s powerful speech in Book 22 . 60 , of which only the first part is reproduced here : The speech powerfully influenced the Senate , and convinced the political elite not to ransom Roman soldiers who had not had the courage to break out unlike Tuditanus . See also . Manlia ( gens )