Lucius Valerius Flaccus (consul 86 BC)

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[The ancient sources] reveal him to have been a strong disciplinarian, an experienced commander, well-acquainted with Asia through family contacts, and well-connected in the Cinnan regime. He was well-qualified for the Eastern mission. … What were Flaccus' orders regarding Sulla? Was he to attack him? If so, Flaccus would have been greatly outnumbered. Was he to cooperate with him? Sulla was still a public enemy. Was he to assume command from Sulla peacefully? It is unlikely Sulla would have complied. [40]

Effect on civil war

Roman legionary standard (replica) Roman signum.jpg
Roman legionary standard (replica)
See also Gaius Valerius Flaccus (consul): Role in civil war and Lucius Valerius Flaccus (consul 100 BC): Role in civil war.

At the time of his murder, Lucius's brother Gaius was governor of Gallia Transalpina and most likely of Cisalpina. He was also a recent, and possibly still current, governor of one or both of the Spanish provinces. He would thus have commanded the largest number of troops in the western half of the Republic. [41] Gaius had either remained neutral or supported the Cinnan government until that point. It is probable that he started turning away from the Marian-Cinnan faction after a Marian killed his brother. He accepted Sulla's new regime once Sulla's troops were in Cisalpine Gaul. [42] His nephew, who had joined him in Gaul after the assassination, served as his military tribune in 82 or 81 BC. [43]

Gaius may have also been influenced by his cousin Lucius, the princeps senatus when the murder occurred. [44] The elder Lucius had served with Marius as the consul for 100 BC, but after he failed to make peace with Sulla, he sponsored the legislation which established the dictatorship, a significant factor in the triumph of Sulla's faction. [45]

Sources

Notes

  1. Birth order is determined by the dates of the offices they held and by his brother carrying their father's name, as was conventional for the elder son.
  2. Not the sister of Valerius Triarius, who had the same name.
  3. Unless otherwise noted, dates and offices are from Broughton, MRR, vol. 2, pp. 1, 18–19, 629.
  4. For more on the case and its context, see Gaius Appuleius Decianus, especially "The case against L. Valerius Flaccus".
  5. Thermus was the brother of Marcus Minucius Thermus.

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References

  1. 1 2 Duncan 2017, p. 216.
  2. Cicero, Pro Flacco 55–57.
  3. T.R.S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, vol. 2, 99 B.C.–31 B.C. (New York: American Philological Association, 1952), pp. 6–7, 66–68, 76, 79.
  4. T.R.S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, vol. 2, 99 B.C.–31 B.C. (New York: American Philological Association, 1952), p. 178, note 2.
  5. Cicero, Pro Flacco 77; Bobbio Scholiast 95 and 105 (Stangl).
  6. Cicero, Pro Flacco 51, 70ff. on the Deciani father and son.
  7. Erich S. Gruen, "Political Prosecutions in the 90's BC," Historia 15 (1966), pp. 36–37
  8. Michael Charles Alexander, The Case for the Prosecution in the Ciceronian Era (University of Michigan Press, 2002), p. 80 online.
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  10. For discussion of the nature and purpose of the festival, see T. Corey Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 553–554 online.
  11. Cicero, Pro Flacco 55–57.
  12. Claude Eilers, Roman Patrons of Greek Cities (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 79 online and p. 137 online.
  13. Richard Gordon with Joyce Reynolds, "Roman Inscriptions 1995–2000," Journal of Roman Studies 93 (2003), p. 225.
  14. Plutarch, Marius 42.1
  15. Granius Licinianus 25B names Valerius; on Marius seizing Ostia, Livy, Periocha 79; Appian, Bellum civile 1.67; Orosius 5.19.17; Broughton, MRR pp. 51 and 53, note 12; Michael Lovano, The Age of Cinna: Crucible of Late Republican Rome (Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002), p. 56, note 13.
  16. Rutilius Rufus, as quoted by Plutarch, Marius 28.8.
  17. E. Badian, "Notes on Provincial Governors from the Social War down to Sulla's Victory," originally published in Proceedings of the African Classical Associations (1958), reprinted in Studies in Greek and Roman History (New York, 1964), p. 94.
  18. Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic. Philological Monograph No. 15. New York: American Philological Association, 1951 p. 76
  19. 1 2 Charles T. Barlow, "The Roman Government and the Roman Economy, 92–80 B.C.," American Journal of Philology 101 (1980), pp. 212–213.
  20. Lovano, The Age of Cinna, pp. 70–75.
  21. Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 33.2; Cicero, Pro Fonteio 1–5.
  22. Sallust, Cat. 33: volentibus omnibus bonis.
  23. Velleius Paterculus, 2.23.2. Discussion in Lovano, The Age of Cinna, pp. 72–73 online.
  24. Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic, p. 526.
  25. Robin Seager, "Sulla," in The Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge University Press, 1994), vol. 9, p. 181 online.
  26. Duncan 2017, p. 217.
  27. Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic, p. 526; Lovano, The Age of Cinna, p. 98; Charles T. Barlow, "The Roman Government and the Roman Economy, 92–80 B.C.," American Journal of Philology 101 (1980), p. 207.
  28. Arthur Keaveney, Sulla, the Last Republican (Routledge, 2nd edition 2005), p. 77 online.
  29. Duncan 2017, p. 218.
  30. John G.F. Hind, "Mithridates," in The Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition 1994), vol. 9, p. 160 online.
  31. Seager, "Cambridge Ancient History", p. 181.
  32. Mary Taliaferro Boatwright, Daniel J. Gargola, Richard J. A. Talbert, The Romans: From Village to Empire (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 188 online.
  33. 1 2 Liv Mariah Yarrow, Historiography at the End of the Republic: Provincial Perspectives on Roman Rule (Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 246 online.
  34. Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic, pp. 556–557.
  35. Hind, The Cambridge Ancient History, p. 160; Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic, p. 557; Broughton, p. 18.
  36. Bobbio Scholiast 96.3 (Stangl 11), Cicero, Pro Flacco 63 and 100; Christoph F. Konrad, Plutarch's Sertorius: A Historical Commentary (University of North Carolina Press, 1994), p. 85–86 online.
  37. 1 2 Duncan 2017, p. 220.
  38. Appian, History of Rome 12.9.60
  39. Memnon 24.3.
  40. Lovano, The Age of Cinna, pp. 98–99 online.
  41. Bruce W. Frier, "Sulla's Propaganda: The Collapse of the Cinnan Republic," American Journal of Philology 92 (1971), p. 597.
  42. Lovano, The Age of Cinna, p. 81.
  43. E. Badian, Studies in Greek and Roman History (New York 1964), p. 229; Lovano, The Age of Cinna, p. 82.
  44. Lovano, The Age of Cinna, p. 81; Christoph F. Konrad, Plutarch's Sertorius: A Historical Commentary (University of North Carolina Press, 1994), p. 86 online.
  45. H.H. Scullard, From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 (Routledge, 1988), p. 79 online.
Lucius Valerius Flaccus
Consul of the Roman Republic, suffect
In office
January 86 BC December 86 BC
Political offices
Preceded by Roman consul
86 BC (suffectus)
With: L. Cornelius Cinna
Succeeded by