Then it was that M. Manlius, the defender of the Capitol, stood forth as the patron of the poor. He saw a debtor being taken to prison, whom he recognised as a brave centurion that had formerly served with him in the wars. He instantly paid the man’s debt, and set him free. Then, selling the best part of his landed property, he declared that, while he could prevent it, he would never see a fellow-citizen imprisoned for debt. His popularity rose high, and with the poorer sort the name of M. Manlius was more in esteem than that of the great Camillus. Nor did he content himself with relieving want; he also stepped forward as an accuser of the patricians and senators: they had divided among themselves, he said, part of the gold which had been raised to pay the Gauls. On the other hand, the patricians asserted that Manlius was endeavouring to make himself tyrant of Rome, and that this was the real purpose of all his generosity. The senate ordered a dictator to be named, and A. Cornelius Cossus was chosen. He summoned Manlius before him, and required him to prove the charge which he had maliciously brought against the ruling body. He failed to do so and was cast into prison, but claimed to be regularly tried before the whole people assembled in their centuries; and his claim was allowed. On the appointed day he appeared in the Campus Martius, surrounded by a crowd of debtors, every one of whom he had redeemed from bondage. Then he exhibited spoils taken from thirty enemies slain by himself in single combat; eight civic crowns, bestowed each of them for the life of a citizen saved in battle, with many other badges given him in token of bravery. He laid bare his breast and showed it all scarred with wounds, and then, turning to the Capitol, he called those gods to aid whom he had saved from the sacrilegious hands of the barbarians. The appeal was felt, and if the centuries had then given their votes, he would certainly have been acquitted of high treason. So his enemies contrived to break up that assembly; and shortly after he was put on his trial in another place, the Peteline grove, whence (it is said) the Capitol could not be seen. Here he was at once found guilty, and condemned to be thrown down the Tarpeian rock. A bill was then brought in and passed, enacting that his house on the Capitol should be destroyed, and that no one of his gens should hereafter bear the forename of Marcus.[35] [Sidenote: [384-376 B.C.]]