Cincinnatus is one of those characters which have a very great name in tradition, but of which the notices in history are scanty, and nearly worthless. He occurs afterwards as a consul, and on that occasion nothing more of any consequence is recorded. Striking facts are told of him only in the Æquian war. There is a _prestige_ of wealth and also of poverty about him: the latter shines forth especially in a rhetorical age, when no one has a mind to be poor, and it seems so much the more inconceivable if a great man is poor. We may leave the old account as it is; but the enthusiasm which has arisen from it, is only foisted into history. Perizonius has remarked, that the same story as that of Cincinnatus was told of the dictator Atilius Serranus (_te sulco Serrane serentem_), and therefore is quite apocryphal. He thinks that in all likelihood it was made from the name (_Serranus_ from _serere_), which was certainly older than the dictator Serranus. The story of Cincinnatus is preserved in a poem on his dictatorship. A Roman army under the consul Minucius was surrounded on the Algidus by the Æquians; the senate, as is stated, then sent a deputation to Cincinnatus, which found him ploughing his little farm of four _jugera_ beyond the river; he is said to have received the invitation of the senate, and to have obeyed it with a bleeding heart, since he had still the fate of his son before his mind. He then chose a brave but poor patrician, L. Tarquitius, as his Master of the Horse; and gave orders that all who were able to bear arms should present themselves, and that each should bring with him twelve palisades, and provisions for five days. In the night they accordingly set out, arrived on the following morning, and formed the army in a line around the Æquian camp. The consul broke through from within, and the Æquians, themselves enclosed by a palisaded ditch, were obliged to surrender.