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The rosy dreams of Cincinnatus, and of carrying the grand old Conservative banner in the face of the foe turned to clay and ashes! They turned the corner, and came upon Mary McSorley who sat on the back step with the czar in her arms. Mary's head was hidden as she kissed the czar's fat neck, and in the general babel of voices, within and without, she did not hear them coming.
There are two stories of special note, the story of Coriolanus, and the story of Cincinnatus. It is related that a brave patrician, Caius Marcius Coriolanus, at a time when grain was scarce, and was procured with difficulty from Etruria and Sicily for the relief of the famishing, proposed that it should be withheld from the plebeians unless they would give up the tribunate.
That day there was great rejoicing in the city, every man setting forth a banquet before his doors in the street. After this, Volscius, that had borne false witness against Kæso, was found guilty of perjury, and went into exile. And when Cincinnatus saw that justice had been done to this evil-doer, he resigned his dictatorship, having held it for sixteen days only.
Peace hath its victories no less renowned than war, and the picture of the American Cincinnatus striving as earnestly on the green fields of Mount Vernon as he did upon the scarlet ones of Monmouth and Brandywine, is one that the world can not afford to forget.
On what accusation were Manlius and Fabius cited to appear before, the people? What measure did the consuls adopt? Where, and in what employment was Cincinnatus found? What effect had this dignity on Cincinnatus? How did he conduct himself? Were his measures successful? Did Cincinnatus continue in office? Was he permitted to continue in retirement?
The majority of the Fathers of the Republic lived in the country, in rustic villas with walls of unseasoned adobe roofed with branches, overseeing the work of their slaves, guiding the plow like Cincinnatus and Camillus; when affairs of state called them to the Senate they came into Rome in their carts, drawn by oxen, riding among baskets of vegetables and sacks of grain, and with their toil-calloused hands they arrayed themselves in the toga before entering the Forum, transfigured by the majesty lent by their flowing vestments.
The recent ignominy had lighted up resentment in a mind unused to affront; it gave him additional courage, that the dictator had not ventured to the same extent against him, as Quinctius Cincinnatus had done in the case of Spurius Mælius, and because the dictator had not only endeavoured to avoid the unpopularity of his imprisonment by abdicating the dictatorship, but not even the senate could bear up against it.
He admitted the merits in war and in policy of the Chief Consul he was at present the Dictator of the Republic, and, as such, had saved it. "Fabius, Camillus, Cincinnatus were dictators also. Why should not Buonaparte, like them, lay down despotic power, after the holding of it had ceased to be necessary to the general good?
Cincinnatus, then, was ploughing in his little field, when there arrived from Rome the messengers sent by the senate to tell him he had been made dictator, and inform him of the dangers which threatened the Republic. Putting on his gown, he hastened to Rome, and getting together an army, marched to deliver Minutius.
So Cincinnatus departed to Rome; and when he came to the other side of the Tiber there met him first his three sons, and next many of his kinsfolk and friends, and after them a numerous company of the nobles. These all conducted him to his house, the lictors, four and twenty in number, marching before him.
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