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Cincinnatus

Latin nameCincinnatus

Model citizen who twice handed back the dictatorship to go home and farm

The Voice of the Senate · Statesmen & Reformers
DictatorCivic virtueReturn to the plow

Who they are

In 458 BC, when a Roman consular army was surrounded by the Aequi, the Senate appointed Cincinnatus dictator — the Republic’s lawful office of emergency power, with a six-month term. The messengers found him plowing his own four-acre farm. He set down the plow, raised an army, defeated the enemy, and returned in triumph to Rome within sixteen days, then resigned the dictatorship and went home to keep farming — power in hand for just sixteen days, with more than five months of the term still to run. In 439 BC, at the age of eighty, he served as dictator again, and again handed power back on time. He became the West’s first model of "civic virtue": Washington, who twice gave up power, was called "the American Cincinnatus," and the city of Cincinnati is named for him.

Key stories

From plow to sword, sixteen days

The Senate’s messengers crossed the Tiber and found Cincinnatus plowing in his field. He called to his wife to fetch his toga — one must be properly dressed to hear a decree — and only after putting it on did he listen: Rome is in crisis, please take up the dictatorship. At dawn the next day he mustered every man of fighting age in Rome, made a night march to surround the Aequi camp, and forced the surrendered enemy to stoop under the "yoke." On the sixteenth day he handed back the rod of office and returned to his field. Livy’s subtext is clear: Rome was strong because its best men treated power like a farm tool — used it, then put it back where it belonged.

Washington’s prototype

Nineteen centuries later, Washington, having won the War of Independence, disbanded his army, gave up his military command, and returned to farm at Mount Vernon, and then refused a third term as president. Hearing that Washington meant to give up power, King George III said, "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world." The society of honor formed by America’s founding officers was called the Society of the Cincinnati, and Washington was its first president. The receding figure of a Roman farmer became the modern republic’s first signpost about power.

Appears in

The Founding & the MonarchyCincinnatus Returns to the Plow
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