United States or Austria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
We have, at least, had no tyrants instead, we have witnessed the spectacle, unique in history, of a great general winning his country's freedom, and then disbanding his army and retiring to his farm. "The Cincinnatus of the West," Byron called him; and John Richard Green adds, "No nobler figure ever stood in the forefront of a nation's life."
"But we needn't go on about Cincinnatus, need we?" said Ben, who had taken Fred's whip out of his hand, and was trying its efficiency on the cat. "No, go out now. But put that whip down. How very mean of you to whip poor old Tortoise! Pray take the whip from him, Fred." "Come, old boy, give it me," said Fred, putting out his hand.
Nay, as he was passing in the train along the Esterel mountains between Cannes and Fréjus, he remarked a pretty house in an orange garden at the angle of a bay, and decided that this should be his Happy Valley. Astrea Redux; childhood was to come again! The idea has an air of simple nobility to me, not unworthy of Cincinnatus.
Where now we find the prosperous and hideous new quarters, the Via Nazionale, and the expanse of structures to the east of it, the region between the Coliseum and the Lateran, the 20 Settembre, Via Veneto, and the vicinity where were the Ludovisi gardens, and now are long streets of ugly houses, with the entirely new quarter of the Prati, were then expanses of vineyards and gardens, and we used to cross the Tiber by a ferry to visit the farm of Cincinnatus, now buried under twenty feet of rubbish, on which are built the palaces of the Prati, huge, ugly barracks; and even the Campagna has lost much of its desolate beauty.
It has identified public spirit with spasmodic acts of public beneficence. The American political ideal became a Cincinnatus whom nobody sent for and who therefore never left his plough.
Titus Quinctius Capitolinus, who was for the sixth time consul, nominated Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who was eighty years of age, as dictator without appeal, in open violation of the solemnly sworn laws. Maelius, summoned before him, seemed disposed to disregard the summons; and the dictator's master of the horse, Gaius Servilius Ahala, slew him with his own hand.
Cincinnatus now rode forward and inspected the camp of the enemy, so far as it could be seen by night. He then ordered the soldiers to throw down their baggage, and to keep only their arms and stakes. Marching stealthily forward, they now extended their lines until they had completely surrounded the hostile camp.
Overwrought by a fever of indignation, he went into his room and piled his clothes upon a chair. "All dese are mine," he said, with simplicity worthy of Cincinnatus. "Der biano is also mine." Fraisier turned to La Sauvage. "Madame, get help," he said; "take that piano out and put it on the landing." "You are too rough into the bargain," said Villemot, addressing Fraisier.
But there was here no Cincinnatus with his stakes, and they were far from Rome. The entrapped army made a desperate effort to escape, attacking the Samnites in the rear, and seeking to force their way up the rugged surrounding hills. They fought in vain. Many of them fell. The Samnite foe pressed them still more closely into the rocky pass.
The consul Valerius, aided by the Latins of Tusculum, levied an army to attack the insurgents, on condition that after success the law should be fully considered. The exiles were driven out and Herdonius was killed. But the consul fell in the assault, and the patricians, led by old Cincinnatus, refused to fulfil his promises.
Word Of The Day