The gens Manlia was one of the oldest and noblest patrician houses at Rome, from the earliest days of the Republic until imperial times.
The first of the gens to obtain the consulship was Gnaeus Manlius Cincinnatus, consul in 480 BC, and for nearly five centuries its members frequently held the most important magistracies.
As with many patrician gentes, the Manlii seem to have acquired plebeian branches as well, and one of the family was tribune of the plebs in the time of Cicero.
[3] Münzer, noting that the cognomen Cincinnatus is missing from the older historians, supposed that it might be a mistake, and that Vulso was the original surname of the Manlian gens.
This surname was first acquired by Titus Manlius Imperiosus, who defeated a giant Gaul during a battle in 361 BC, and took his torque as a trophy, placing it around his own neck.
[8] The descendants of Torquatus remained prominent until the final decades of the Republic, and adopted the torque as an emblem upon their coins.
[9][10] The Manlii Torquati were firmly aligned with the aristocratic party toward the end of the Republic, siding first with Sulla, then with Pompeius and the Liberatores.