CINCIUS. L. CINCIUS ALIMENTUS, and his contemporary Fabius Pieter, are mentioned by Dionysine of lialicarnassue ('ltoman Antiq.' L, c. 6, od. Hudson), as the oldest of the Roman annalists. Ali mentus is also frequently mentioned by Livy (Lei 38, xxvi. 23, &c.) The time of the birth and death of Cincius ie not known, but ho was actively engaged during the occupation of Italy by lianuibnl.
ealimentes was of a plebeian family. He was greater B.C. 219, tribunus plebis B.C. 214, and plebeian walla u.c. 212. After Ilaroellue had taken Syracuse, and left Sicily, Cincius held that province for two years as priotor (Livy, xxvL 23, xxvii. 7), in the years B.C. 210 and 209. He took with him the soldiers who had survived the defeat at Callum. In tho next year ho had the command of a naval force, with whiob he crossed over from Sicily to Loci, on which he made an unsuccessful attack, and was obliged to retreat. lie was afterwards one of three com missioners who were sent by the Senate to give their advice to T.
Qulnctiue Crispinum, the consul, who was lying wounded at Capua. It is not known whether it was at this time or later that he fell into Hannibel'a hands, a circumstance which give Lira the opportunity of acquiring a more exact knowledge of the events of that period. He learned some facts from the mouth of Hannibal himself (LIvy, xxi. 33). Cineius wrote a history of Rome from the foundation of the city to his own time, of which Dionyaius says that he treated minutely of the events with which ho was personally acquainted, but in a summary way of the events which followed the foundation of the city. Neither the title of his work nor the number of books is known. The work of Cinches is stated by Dionysius to have been written in ()reek, and there is no evidence to oppose to this. Livy frequently mentions Ali meatus, and in one passage (vii. 3) he calla him au exact authority.
Other works were attributed to Cinciue—on ()orgies of Leontini, on the Fast', the Comitia, on the authority of the consuls, on the office of a Juriseonault, on Military Matters, on Ancient Words, and De Featis Myatagogicon. But it is not certain that the Cincius who
was the author of these works was the same ea tho historian, though it ia likely enough that an historian might write on military tactics. Oellius (xvL 4) gives several extracts from the work on military matters, but ho simply calls the author Cincius. The chronological difficulty which Krause raises against the author of the treatise on military mattota being also the historian is not very great. His arguments against the probability of Cincius Laving written a gram matical work such as that on ancient words are much stronger; and Indeed there is no sufficient evidence that the other works that have been mentioned as written by Cincius, were written by the historian.
The epoch which Cincius assigned to the foundation of Rome is about the fourth year of the twelfth Olympiad, or n.o. 723. The dis crepancy from other reckonings is accounted for by supposing that Cincius either followed other evidence than the repeals of tho Roman pontifices; or that he made his calculation by changing the lunar years of the early Roman kings, which were of ten months, into years of twelve months, according to the reckoning of the period when he wrote. Now if we admit, as Junius Gracchanus states, that the old calendar was in use to the time of the first Tarquin, which will give a period of 132 years from the foundation of the city, we may adopt the following solution of Niebuhr :—" If Cincius took these to be cyclical years, he got exactly a secle (110 years) for the first four kings ; and if he subtracted the difference, twenty-two years, from the era of the result for the building of the city would be the very date, 01. 12, 4." (Niebuhr, 'Roman History,' Transl. 1 280).
(The fragments of Cincius are printed in Krauae's Vitce et Fraymenta Veterum Ilistoricorum Romanorum, Berlin, 1833.)