In the year of the City 390, a plague broke out in Rome, and the calamity, which swallowed up thousands, being ascribed to the gods, repasts were prepared for them, under the title of _lectisternia_, in order to draw off their appetites from the people. The richest luxuries were laid out upon tables, to which the gods were invited; but these tables caused no diminution in the tables of mortality. As the guests did not accept in person the invitations addressed to them, they were represented by images; but this imaginary attendance at a real feast fed nothing but the superstition of the people. A statue of Jupiter was laid, at full length, upon a couch of ivory, covered with the softest cushions; but it was found impossible to produce the sort of impression that was so earnestly desired. Chairs were also set round for the goddesses, but none came forward to take the chair at this unfortunate banquet. An effort was then made to divert the attention of the gods, by getting up stage plays, or histriones:[27] but the gods did not patronise the drama in those days, more than in our own; and whether the Olympian dinner-hour interfered, or whether no interest was felt in an entertainment translated from Etruria, as the English drama is from France, the result was the same in both cases, for the plays, during their short-lived career, were dead failures. To add to the misery of the whole affair, while the stage performances were unattended, there was an inconvenient "succession of overflows" of the Tiber's banks, which damped the spirits and deluged the houses of the inhabitants.
Seizing hold of every piece of superstition, instead of taking the pestilence fairly in hand, the Romans, hearing that a plague had once been stopped by knocking a nail into the wall of a temple, resolved on going on that absurd tack; and, for this purpose, a hammer was put by the ninny-hammers into the hands of Manlius. As the pestilence had by this time begun to wear itself out, the people were foolish enough to suppose that the plague had been driven in with the nail; and Manlius having fulfilled the task, which any carpenter might have performed, resigned the dictatorship.
It is always the fate of a real or supposed benefactor of the public to have plenty of private foes; and, indeed, an elevated position is usually an inviting mark for the arrows of malevolence. Manlius became a target forthwith; and, had the very bull's eye been aimed at, the apple of his eye could not have been more effectually hit, than by a wound sought to be inflicted on him, through his son Titus. The youth had, it seems, an unfortunate hesitation in his speech, which irritated his hasty parent; and as the boy could scarcely stammer out a word, a few words with his father became a very frequent consequence. As he laboured so much in his speech, the unhappy lad was sent to labour with his hands among the slaves; and Pomponius, the plebeian tribune, having a spite against the father, began to regard the son with the most enlarged benevolence.