MANLIUS

This article appears in Volume V17, Page 587 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MAL-MAR

MANLIUS , the name of a Roman gens, chiefly patrician, but containing plebeian families also.
I. MARCUS MANLIUS CAPITOLINUS, a patrician, C0nsul392 B.C. According to tradition, when in 390 B.C. the besieging Gauls were attempting to scale the Capitol, he was roused by the cackling of the sacred geese, rushed to the spot and threw down the foremost assailants (Livy v. 47; Plutarch, Camillus, 27).
Several years after, seeing a centurion led to prison for debt, he freed him with his own money, and even sold his estate to relieve other poor debtors, while he accused the senate of embezzling public money. He was charged with aspiring to kingly power, and condemned by the comitia, but not until the assembly had adjourned to a place without the walls, where they could no longer see the Capitol which he had saved. His

house

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

on the Capitol (the origin of his surname) was razed, and the Manlii resolved that henceforth no patrician Manlius should

bear

the name of Marcus, According to Mommsen, the story of the saving of the Capitol was a later invention to explain his surname, and his attempt to relieve the debtors a fiction of the times of Cinna.
Livy vi. 14-20; Plutarch, Camillus, 36; Cicero, De domo, 38.
2. TITUS MANLIUS IMPERIOSUS TORQUATUS, twice dictator (353, 349 B.C.) and three times

consul

(347, 344, 340). When his father, L. Manlius Imperiosus (dictator 363), was brought to trial by the tribune M.

Pomponius

POMPONIUS, LUCIUS

for abusing his office of dictator, he forced

Pomponius

POMPONIUS, LUCIUS

to drop the accusation by threatening his life (Livy vii. 3-5). In 36o, during a war with the Gauls, he slew one of the enemy, a man of gigantic stature, in single combat, and took from him a torques (neck-ornament), whence his surname. When the Latins demanded an equal share in the government of the confederacy, Manlius vowed to kill with his own hand the first Latin he saw in the senate-

house

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

. The Latins and Campanians revolted, and Manlius,

consul

for the third time, marched into Campania and gained. two great victories, near

Vesuvius

VESUVIUS (also Vesevus in ancient poets)

, where P. Decius Mus (q.v.), his colleague, " devoted " himself in order to gain the day, and at Trifanum. In this campaign Manlius executed his own son, who had killed an enemy in single combat, and thus disobeyed the express command of the consuls.
Livy vii. 4, 10, 27, viii. 3; Cicero, De off. iii. 31.
3. TITUS MANLIUS TORQUATUS, consul 235 B.C. and 224, censor 231, dictator 208. In his first consulship he subjugated Sardinia, recently acquired from the Carthaginians, when the temple of Janus was shut for the second time in Roman history (Livy i. 19). In 216 he opposed the ransoming of the Romans taken prisoners at Cannae; and in 215 he was sent to Sardinia and defeated a Carthaginian attempt to regain possession of the island.
Livy xxiii. 34;

Polybius

POLYBIUS (c. 204–122 B.C.)

ii. 31.
4. GNAEUS MANLIUS VULSO, praetor 195, consul 189. He was sent to Asia to conclude peace with Antiochus III., king of Syria. He marched into

Pamphylia

PAMPHYLIA

, defeated the Celts of Galatia on Mt

Olympus

OLYMPUS

and drove them back across the Halys. In the winter, assisted by ten delegates sent from Rome, he settled the terms of peace with Antiochus, and in 187 received the honour of a

triumph

TRIUMPH (triumphus)

Polybius

POLYBIUS (c. 204–122 B.C.)

xxii. 16-25; Livy xxxviii. 12-28, 37-50; xxxix. 6.

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