Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 6
Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., Ed.

20. This argument won universal approbation, and Manlius was indicted. The first effect of this was to rouse [2??] great feeling in the commons, especially when they saw the defendant meanly clad and not attended by a single senator, or even by his kinsmen or connexions, or indeed by his own brothers, Aulus and Titus Manlius. That a man's nearest friends should not join him in assuming mourning in an hour so fraught with danger to him, was something that had never until that day occurred. [3] They remembered that on the imprisonment of Appius Claudius, his enemy Gaius Claudius and all the Claudian family had gone into mourning; and they concluded that there must be a general conspiracy to put down the people's friend because he had been the first to forsake the patricians for the plebs.

[4] The day of the trial came, but I do not find it stated in any authority what facts were alleged by his accusers that bore directly on the charge of plotting to establish a kingdom, except gatherings of the populace and seditious expressions and his [p. 265]largesses and false charge; [5] and yet I doubt not they¹ were of moment, since the reluctance of the plebs to condemn him was not owing to his cause but to the place.² One thing appears worthy of remark, that men may know what great and glorious achievements a vile lust for regal power rendered not merely thankless but actually hateful. [6] It is said that he brought forward nearly four hundred men to whom he had lent money without interest, thus saving their goods from being sold and their persons from enslavement; [7] that besides this the military distinctions which he not only enumerated but produced for all to see, comprised the spoils of thirty enemies whom he had slain, and some forty decorations from his generals, amongst which were conspicuous two mural and eight civic crowns;³ [8] that he told, besides, of citizens saved from the enemy, and among these named Gaius Servilius, the master of the horse, who was not present. [9] And after rehearsing his services in war, in a speech as magnificent as the height of his achievements and equalling his deeds with its words, he is said to have bared his breast, marked with the scars of battle, and gazing steadily at the Capitol to have called on Jupiter and the other gods to help him, that they might inspire the Roman People in his hour of danger with the same spirit they had given him when he- defended the Capitoline Hill; and to have implored the Romans one and all to fix their eyes on the Capitol and Citadel, and turn to the immortal gods while they judged him.

[10] In the Campus Martius, when the people were being called by centuries,⁴ and the defendant, [p. 267]stretching forth his hands to the Capitol, had turned⁵ from men to make his prayers to the gods, the tribunes clearly saw that unless they could also emancipate men's eyes from the associations of so glorious a deed, no accusation, however true, could ever find lodgment in their grateful hearts. [11] And so they adjourned the day of trial and appointed a council of the people to meet in the Peteline Wood outside the Flumentane Gate,⁶ whence no prospect of the Capitol was afforded. There they made good their charge; men steeled their hearts and pronounced a dolorous judgment, abhorrent to the very ones who rendered it. [12] Some authorities assert that he was condemned by duumvirs appointed to deal with a charge of treason.⁷ The tribunes flung him from the Tarpeian Rock, and the same spot served to commemorate extraordinary fame and the extremity of punishment, as experienced by the self-same man.

[13] To his death were added marks of ignominy: one of a public nature, because the people were asked to vote that, since his house had stood where the temple and mint of Moneta now are,⁸ no patrician might dwell in the Citadel or the Capitol; [14] the other proceeding from his family, in that the Manlian clan made a decree forbidding anyone thenceforth to bear the name of Marcus Manlius.⁹ Such was the end of a man who, had he not been born in a free state, would have left a memorable name. [15] In a short time the people, remembering —now that he was no longer a source of danger —only his good qualities, regretted him. Moreover a pestilence soon ensued, and caused a heavy mortality for which there were no obvious causes, and this many people ascribed to the execution of Manlius: [16] the Capitol, they said, had [p. 269]been polluted by the blood of its saviour, and the¹⁰ gods had not been pleased that the man who had rescued their temples from the hands of the enemy, should be punished almost under their very eyes.