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Spotlight: Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Cincinnatus Called From the Plow by Marco Ricci, oil on canvas, c. 1700.
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (c. 519–430 B.C.) stands as one of the most celebrated exemplars of civic virtue in the early Roman Republic. Though the historical details of his life are partly legendary, the enduring power of his story has shaped political ideals across Western civilization for more than two millennia.
According to the Roman historian Livy, Cincinnatus was a patrician farmer who had withdrawn from political life after personal and family misfortunes. In 458 B.C., during a military crisis in which Roman forces were trapped by the Aequi, the Senate appointed him dictator — an emergency magistracy that granted near-absolute authority for a limited term, typically six months. Messengers found Cincinnatus ploughing his modest farm. He accepted the office reluctantly, rallied and reorganized the Roman army with decisive efficiency, defeated the enemy, and then — resigned his dictatorship after only sixteen days, surrendering power once the crisis had passed.
He was appointed dictator a second time in 439 B.C. to quell a suspected conspiracy. Again, he stepped down once order was restored. In both instances, the moral of the story was clear: power was a burden accepted for the common good, not a prize to be seized or prolonged.
Cincinnatus’s legacy rests less on verifiable deeds than on the Roman ideals he embodied: virtus, gravitas, and devotion to the res publica — the public thing. His voluntary relinquishing of absolute authority became a touchstone for republican thought. In later centuries, political philosophers like Machiavelli and Montisquieu held him up as a model of restrained leadership and civic responsibility.
His influence was especially profound during the Enlightenment and the age of revolution. Leaders of the American Revolution consciously likened George Washington to Cincinnatus for resigning his military commission after the American Revolutionary War and stepping down after two presidential terms. The Society of the Cincinnati was founded in Cincinnatus’s honour, and the city of Cincinnati bears his name.
In the Western tradition, Cincinnatus has become a symbol of the citizen-statesman: one who serves reluctantly, governs justly, and relinquishes authority willingly. His legacy demonstrates that true leadership lies not in clinging to power, but in knowing when to lay it down.
Verse: 'The Eve of St. Agnes’ by John Keats
I
St. Agnes’ Eve — Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.
II
His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man;
Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees,
And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,
Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:
The sculptur’d dead, on each side, seem to freeze,
Emprison’d in black, purgatorial rails:
Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat’ries,
He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and mails.
III
Northward he turneth through a little door,
And scarce three steps, ere Music’s golden tongue
Flatter’d to tears this aged man and poor:
But no — already had his deathbell rung;
The joys of all his life were said and sung:
His was harsh penance on St. Agnes’ Eve
Another way he went, and soon among
Rough ashes sat he for his soul’s reprieve,
And all night kept awake, for sinners’ sake to grieve.
This forty-two stanza poem was likely written in 1819 during Keats’ trip to Chichester. ‘St. Agnes’ was a Roman martyr who was killed during the Emperor Diocletian’s reign; the poem plays with a famous superstition associated with her cult whereby ‘taking certain measures of divination, damsels may get a sight of their future husbands in a dream,’ (Hunt, London Journal, 1835). St. Agnes’ Eve is 20 January.
Pensées
The Tripartite Soul — In Plato’s tripartite theory of the soul, we are governed by three competing aspects of our psyche: our epithymetikon, which contains our appetites, our thymos (‘spirit’ or ‘pride’), and our logistikon (‘reason’). It is the latter two components that mark humanity out from the animals, and through them that we conquer our appetites. Plato’s theory is ‘proved’ by a famous story in Book IV of The Republic, where Leontius allows his base appetites to get the better of him. Despite knowing he ought to refrain, he feasts his eyes on the grisly sight of executed prisoners outside of Athens. The awful sight satisfied Leontius’s appetite for spectacle, but his giving in to common curiosity demonstrated for all present his lack of self-mastery.
Q: Do you rule your appetites, or are they ruling you?
Diversions
Why you shouldn’t wait to pass wealth onto your kids.
Looking for a book to read? This podcast’s ‘Inkling Awards’ should be a source of inspiration.
Watch: A tour of an English country estate church with Dr. Alan Barton.
Meet Commander James Campbell Clouston: Canada’s hero of Dunkirk.
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