Marcus Manlius

Marcus Manlius Capitolinus, a patrician of the Roman Republic, was consul in 390 BC.

According to tradition, when in 390 BC the besieging Gauls of Brennus were attempting to scale the Capitoline Hill, he was roused by the cackling of the sacred geese, rushed to the spot and threw down the foremost assailants (Livy v. 47; Plutarch, Camilus, 27).

Several years after, seeing a centurion led to prison for debt, he freed him with his own money, and even sold his estate to relieve other poor debtors, while he accused the senate of embezzling public money. He was charged with aspiring to kingly power, and condemned by the comitia, but not until the assembly had adjourned to a place without the walls, where they could no longer see the Capitol which he had saved.

His house on the Capitol (the origin of his surname) was razed, and the Manlii resolved that henceforth no patrician Manlius should bear the name of Marcus. According to Mommsen, the story of the saving of the Capitol was a later invention to explain his surname, and his attempt to relieve the debtors a fiction of the times of Cinna.