Lucius Valerius Flaccus (consul 86 BC)
Lucius Valerius Flaccus | |
---|---|
Consul of the Roman Republic, suffect | |
In office January 86 BC – December 86 BC Serving with Lucius Cornelius Cinna | |
Preceded by | Gaius Marius |
Succeeded by | L. Cornelius Cinna and Cn. Papirius Carbo |
Personal details | |
Born | Unknown |
Died | 85 BC Nicomedia |
Political party | Marian-Cinnan faction |
Children | Lucius Valerius Flaccus |
Military service | |
Commands | First Mithridatic War |
Lucius Valerius Flaccus (died
In 85 BC, Flaccus was assigned the
Flaccus is also known for the Lex Valeria de aere alieno, his legislation on debt reform during the Roman economic crisis of the 80s BC. This legislation resolved the pressing economic crisis to the benefit of debtors by cancelling three-quarters of all outstanding debts, to the great disadvantage of their creditors.[1]
Family
Lucius Valerius Flaccus was the younger brother of
Inscriptional evidence has been found at Magnesia, but it could pertain either to Flaccus or his son, who was also a governor of Asia. The inscription describes a marriage to a daughter of Lucius Saufeius and a daughter named Valeria Paullina.[b] His mother, a Baebia, is also commemorated. Flaccus is called ἀνθύπατος (anthupatos), a Greek term for proconsul.[4]
Life and career
Flaccus[c] was a military tribune, a senior military position, sometime before 100 BC. In 99 BC, he was curule aedile, a junior political position.[5] On completion of his term he was unsuccessfully prosecuted by Gaius Appuleius Decianus.[6] The charges were vague, and could be one of several politically motivated prosecutions in the 90s BC. The prosecutions continued the political unrest of the preceding decade, moving away from violence and to the law courts.[7][d] The trial did little to slow Flaccus's career.[8] By 92 BC he was elected praetor. He was a praetor or propraetor in Asia around 92–91 BC, only a few years after his brother Gaius held the same post.[9]
Governor of Asia
Before the First Mithridatic War, during Flaccus's governorship of Asia, collections were made for games and a festival in his honour. The money was deposited at Tralles, but seems not to have been spent as planned. Cicero claims the town lent out the funds at interest for its own profit.[10] Three decades later, Flaccus's son Lucius was governor of the same province. Cicero defended him against multiple charges of financial impropriety during his administration – when the Trallians accused him of embezzlement, Cicero claimed that Flaccus was merely "recuperating" the funds.[11]
Flaccus and his brother Gaius, who held a promagisterial command in Asia around 96 BC, were recognised as patrons of the city of Colophon in Lydia.[12] The two men are the first Roman governors known to be patrons of a free city, a practice that became common in the 60s BC.[13]
Pro-Marian and suffect consul
In 87 BC, during the civil war, a cavalry garrison commander named Valerius handed Ostia to Marius ("treacherously," according to Plutarch[14]); this Valerius may be Flaccus.[15] During the 90s BC and into the mid-80s the Valerii Flacci seemed to be securely aligned with the Marian-Cinnan faction. When the elder cousin Lucius Flaccus held the consulship jointly with Marius in 100 BC, he was accused of being "more a servant than a colleague".[16] Ernst Badian considers the Valerii Flacci "one of the foremost pro-Marian families".[17]
In 86 BC, Lucius Flaccus replaced Gaius Marius as consul, following the latter's unexpected death in mid-January at the beginning of his seventh term. Flaccus's colleague in the consulship was Cornelius Cinna. That Flaccus replaced the faction leader, and most eminent Roman of the day, and served alongside the new faction leader, is a sign of both the esteem in which he was held and how firmly aligned to the Marian faction he was considered to be.[18]
Credit crisis of the 80s BC
Flaccus's most controversial act as consul was the Lex Valeria de aere alieno, a radical
Land was the most common
Flaccus took drastic measures. With the silver
Mutiny and murder
At the end of his term, Flaccus was made governor of the
Because the Cinnan government had a depleted treasury, it could fund only five legions. Two of them (sometimes called the
According to
At the
Assessment
The 1st-century B.C. historian
[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
- 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
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
- Appian, History of Rome 12.9.60
- Brennan, T. Corey. The Praetorship in the Roman Republic. Oxford University Press, 2000.
- Broughton, T.R.S. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, vol. 2, 99 B.C.–31 B.C. New York: American Philological Association, 1952.
- The Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition 1994), vol. 9.
- Duncan, Mike (2017). The Storm before the Storm. New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1-5417-2403-7.
- Lovano, Michael. The Age of Cinna: Crucible of Late Republican Rome. Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002.
- H.H. Scullard, From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 Routledge, 1988.
Notes
- ^ 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.
- ^ Not the sister of Valerius Triarius, who had the same name.
- ^ Unless otherwise noted, dates and offices are from Broughton, MRR, vol. 2, pp. 1, 18–19, 629.
- ^ For more on the case and its context, see Gaius Appuleius Decianus, especially "The case against L. Valerius Flaccus".
- ^ Thermus was the brother of Marcus Minucius Thermus.
References
- ^ a b Duncan 2017, p. 216.
- ^ Cicero, Pro Flacco 55–57.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Cicero, Pro Flacco 77; Bobbio Scholiast 95 and 105 (Stangl).
- ^ Cicero, Pro Flacco 51, 70ff. on the Deciani father and son.
- ^ Erich S. Gruen, "Political Prosecutions in the 90's BC," Historia 15 (1966), pp. 36–37
- ^ Michael Charles Alexander, The Case for the Prosecution in the Ciceronian Era (University of Michigan Press, 2002), p. 80 online.
- ^ T. Corey Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic (Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 555.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Cicero, Pro Flacco 55–57.
- ^ Claude Eilers, Roman Patrons of Greek Cities (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 79 online and p. 137 online.
- ^ Richard Gordon with Joyce Reynolds, "Roman Inscriptions 1995–2000," Journal of Roman Studies 93 (2003), p. 225.
- ^ Plutarch, Marius 42.1
- Orosius5.19.17; 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.
- ^ Rutilius Rufus, as quoted by Plutarch, Marius 28.8.
- 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.
- ^ Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic. Philological Monograph No. 15. New York: American Philological Association, 1951 p. 76
- ^ a b Charles T. Barlow, "The Roman Government and the Roman Economy, 92–80 B.C.," American Journal of Philology 101 (1980), pp. 212–213.
- ^ Lovano, The Age of Cinna, pp. 70–75.
- ^ Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 33.2; Cicero, Pro Fonteio 1–5.
- ^ Sallust, Cat. 33: volentibus omnibus bonis.
- ^ Velleius Paterculus, 2.23.2. Discussion in Lovano, The Age of Cinna, pp. 72–73 online.
- ^ Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic, p. 526.
- ^ Robin Seager, "Sulla," in The Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge University Press, 1994), vol. 9, p. 181 online.
- ^ Duncan 2017, p. 217.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Arthur Keaveney, Sulla, the Last Republican (Routledge, 2nd edition 2005), p. 77 online.
- ^ Duncan 2017, p. 218.
- ^ John G.F. Hind, "Mithridates," in The Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition 1994), vol. 9, p. 160 online.
- ^ Seager, "Cambridge Ancient History", p. 181.
- ^ Mary Taliaferro Boatwright, Daniel J. Gargola, Richard J. A. Talbert, The Romans: From Village to Empire (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 188 online.
- ^ a b Liv Mariah Yarrow, Historiography at the End of the Republic: Provincial Perspectives on Roman Rule (Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 246 online.
- ^ Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic, pp. 556–557.
- ^ Hind, The Cambridge Ancient History, p. 160; Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic, p. 557; Broughton, p. 18.
- ^ 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.
- ^ a b Duncan 2017, p. 220.
- ^ Appian, History of Rome 12.9.60
- ^ Memnon 24.3.
- ^ Lovano, The Age of Cinna, pp. 98–99 online.
- ^ Bruce W. Frier, "Sulla's Propaganda: The Collapse of the Cinnan Republic," American Journal of Philology 92 (1971), p. 597.
- ^ Lovano, The Age of Cinna, p. 81.
- ^ E. Badian, Studies in Greek and Roman History (New York 1964), p. 229; Lovano, The Age of Cinna, p. 82.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.