, a day of trial
is appointed for Manlius, by Marcus Pomponius, tribune of the commons.
His severity in the levies, carried not only to the fining of the
citizens, but even to the laceration of their bodies, those who had not
answered to their names being some beaten with rods, others thrown into
prison, was hateful; and more hateful than all was his violent temper,
and the surname of Imperiosus, offensive to a free state, adopted by him
from an ostentation of severity, which he exercised not more against
strangers than his nearest friends, and even those of his own blood. And
among other things, the tribune alleged as a charge against him that "he
had banished his son, a youth convicted of no improper conduct, from the
city, home, household gods, forum, light, from the society of his
equals, and consigned him in a manner to a prison or workhouse; where a
youth of dictatorian rank, born of a very high family, should learn by
his daily suffering that he was descended of a truly imperious father.
And for what offence? because he was not eloquent, nor ready in
discourse. Which defect of nature, whether ought it to be treated with
leniency if there were a particle of humanity in him, or ought it to be
punished, and rendered more remarkable by harsh treatment? The dumb
beasts even, if any of their offspring happen to be badly formed, are
not the less careful in nourishing and cherishing them. But Lucius
Manlius aggravated the misfortune of his son by severity, and further
clogged the slowness of his intellects; and if there were in him even
the least spark of natural ability he extinguished it by a rustic life
and a clownish education, and keeping him among cattle."

5. By these charges the minds of all were exasperated against him more
than that of the young man himself: nay, on the contrary, being grieved
that he was even the cause of public odium and accusations to his
father, that all the gods and men might know that he would rather afford
aid to his father than to his enemies, he forms the design,
characteristic of a rude and rustic mind no doubt, and though of a
precedent not conformable to the rules of civil life, yet commendable
for its filial piety. Having furnished himself with a knife, without the
knowledge of any one he proceeds early in the morning into the city, and
from the gate straightway to the house of Marcus Pomponius the tribune:
he tells the porter, that he wanted to see his master immediately, and
bid