person
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Cincinnatus
also: L. Quinctio Cincinnato
Legendary Roman patrician summoned from his plough to the dictatorship (458 BC); under his order Servilius Ahala killed Spurius Maelius. Cicero's emblem of senatorial farmers.
Reading notes
- Cato the Elder, On Old Age §56 it was while Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was at the plow that word reached him he had been made dictator
The dictator was an extraordinary magistrate appointed in crisis with supreme authority for six months, who named a master of horse (magister equitum) as his deputy. Cincinnatus' summons from the plough (458 BC) is Rome's emblem of the citizen-farmer called to command.