Titus Manlius Torquatus (consul 235 BC)

[18][12] Several ancient authors tell that after his victory, Titus closed the doors of the Temple of Janus, symbolically meaning that Rome and its neighbours were at peace.

[23] Titus' consulship marks a return to normal after the aggressive foreign policy of his predecessors, Lucius and Publius Cornelius Lentulus Caudinus, proponents of an expansionist strategy against Carthage and the Celts in Northern Italy.

This policy lasted until 232 BC and the first consulship of Fabius Maximus, the most important Roman statesman of the second half of the third century, and the leader of the "peace faction" at Rome.

[30] In 216 BC, as a senior senator, Titus successfully opposed the ransoming of the Romans taken prisoner at the Battle of Cannae, on the grounds that they had made no effort to break out of the Carthaginian lines.

He defeated a combined army of Carthaginians and Sardinian rebels under Hasdrubal the Bald and Hampsicora at the Battle of Decimomannu and secured Sardinia for Rome.

In 212 BC, he and Flaccus contested for the position of Pontifex Maximus (chief priest of Rome), and both lost to a younger and less distinguished man, Publius Licinius Crassus.

It is unclear from Livy's account if Licinius Crassus benefited from the inevitable division of votes between the two ex-censors, or whether he was always favoured for the role.

Francis Ryan suggested that because of the closure of the Temple of Janus, Titus was associated with peace, and it played against him in this time of total war against Hannibal.

[32] Two years later (208 BC) he was appointed dictator in order to hold the elections and preside over the games that had been promised by the Praetor M. Aemilius.

The elder grandson, Titus, was especially known for his severity, as he organised a private trial of his son for bribery, who committed suicide after he had banished him from his sight.

[35][36][37] The consul of 165 BC therefore emulated the severity of his ancestors, including that of his grandfather, whose deeds were reported by the annalists as examples of the imperia Manliana, the "Manlian orders".