Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/189

FLAVUS. and fame as a teacher of rhetoric. He was re- garded at Rome as a youthful prodigj'-, and lectured before he had assumed the dress of manhood. His master, Cestius, said that his talents were too pre- cocious to be permanent ; and Seneca {Controv. i. p. 79. Bip.) remarks that Flavus always owed his renown in part to something beside his eloquence. At first his 3'outh attracted wonder ; afterwards his ease and carelessness. Yet he long retained a numerous school of hearers, although his talents were latterly spoiled by self-indulgence. Fiavus united poetry and history or natural philosophy (Plin. N. H. ix. 8. § 25, and Blench, ix. xii. xiv. XV.) to rhetoric. (Senec. Controv. i. vii. X. xiv ; Schott, de Clar. ap. Senec. Rhet. i. p. 374.) [W.B.D.] FLAVUS, L. CAESE'TIUS, tribune of the Plebs in B, c. 44, and deposed from his office by C. Julius Caesar, because, in concert with C. Epi- dius Marullus, one of his colleagues in the tribunate, he had removed the crowns from the statues of the dictator, and imprisoned a person who had saluted Caesar as " king." After expelling him from the senate, Caesar was urgent with the father of Flavus to disinherit him. But the elder Caesetius replied, that he would rather be deprived of his three sons than brand one of them with infamy. At the next consular comitia, many votes were given for Flavus, who, by his bold bearing towards the dictator, had become highly popular at Rome. (Appian, B. a ii. 108, 122, iv. 93 ; Suet. Caes. 79, 80 ; Dion Cass. xliv. 9, 10, xlvi. 49 ; Plut. Ccu's. 61, Anton. 12; Veil. Pat. ii. 68; Liv. Epit. cxvi.; Cic. Philipp. xiii. 15 ; Val. Max. V. 7, § 2.) [W. B. D.J FLAVUS, C. DECI'MIUS, a tribune of the soldiers, B. c. 209. He rescued M. Claudius Mar- cellus from defeat by repulsing a charge of Hanni- bal's elephants. (Liv. xxvii. 14.) Flavus was praetor urbanus, B. c, 184, and died in his year of office. (Liv. xxxix. 32, 38, 39.) [W. B. D.] FLAVUS, LA'RTIUS. 1. Sr. Lartius Fla- vus, consul B. c. 506. Dionysius (v. 36) says that nothing was recorded of this consulship, and Livy omits it altogether. Niebuhr {Hist, of Rome, vol. i. p. 536) considers the consulship of Lartius Flavus and his colleague T. Herminius Aquilinus to have been inserted to fill up the gap of a year. Lartius Flavus belongs to the heroic period of Roman history. His name is generally coupled with that of Herminius (Dionys. V. 22, 23, 24, 36 ; Liv. ii. 10, 11), and in the original lays they were the two warriors who stood beside Horatius Codes in his defence of the bridge. [CocLES,] Mr. Macaulay {Lays of Anc. Rome, " Horatius," st. 30) preserves this feature of the story, and adopts Niebuhr's reason for it {Hist. Ro7ne, i. p. 542), that one represented the tribe of the Ramnes, and the other that of the Titienses. It is worth notice, however, that at the battle of the Lake Regillus, where all the heroes meet to- gether for the last time, the name of Herminius appears, but not that of Lartius. (Dionys. v. 3, &c. ; Liv. ii. 19, «&c.) Lartius Flavus was consul a second time in b. c. 490 (Dionys. vii. 68) ; warden of the city (v. 75, viii. 64) ; one of the five envoys sent to the Volscian camp when Coriolanus besieged Rome (viii. 72) ; and interrex for holding the consular comitia b. c. 480 (viii. 90), in which year he counselled war with Veil (ib. 91). 2. T. Lartius Flavus, brother of No. 1, con- FLORA. 175 sul B.C. 501, and again b. c. 498. In this second consulship he took the town of Fidenae. (Dionys. V. 50, 59, 60 ; Liv. ii. 21.) His deference to the senate is contrasted by Dionysius with the military arrogance of the Roman generals of his own age. In B. c. 498, ten years after the expulsion of the Tarquins, the curiae found it necessary to create a new magistracy, the dictatorship, limited indeed to six months, but within that period more abso- lute than the ancient monarchy, since there was no appeal from its authority. {Diet, of Ant. s. v. Dic- tator.) T. Lartius Flavus was the first dictator (Dionys. v. 71 ; Liv. ii. 18): he received the im- perium from his colleague, appointed his master of the equites, held a census of the citizens, adjusted the differences of Rome with the Latins, and after presiding at the next consular comitia, laid down his office long before its term had expired. (Dionys. V. 76, 77.) According to one account (id. vi. 1 ; comp. Liv. ii. 8), Lartius Flavus dedicated the temple of Saturn, or the Capitol on the Capitoline hill. He was one of the envoys sent by the senate, B. c. 493, to treat with the plebs in their secession to the Sacred Hill (Dionys. vi. 81), and in the same year he served as legatus to the consul, Pos- tumus Cominius, at the siege of Corioli. (Id. 92 ; Plut. Coriolan. 8.) In a tumult of the plebs, arising from the pressure of debt, B.C. 494, Lartius recommended conciliatory measures (Liv. ii. 29), and this agrees with the character of him by Diony- sius {II. cc.) as a mild and just man. [W. B. D.] FLAVUS or FLA'VIUS, SU'BRI US, tribune in the Praetorian guards, and most active agent in the conspiracy against Nero, a. d. 66, which, from its most distinguished member, was ca'iled Piso's conspiracy. Flavus proposed to kill Nero while singing on the stage, or amidst the flames of his palace. He was said to have intended to make away with Piso also, and to offer the empire to Seneca, the philosopher, since such a choice would justify the conspirators, and it would be to little purpose to get rid of a piper, if a player — for Piso, too, hud appeared on the stage — were to succeed him. The plot was detected. Flavus was betrayed by an accomplice and arrested, and, after some attempts at excuse, gloried in the charge. He was beheaded, and died with firmness. Dion Cassius calls him 2,ov€los ^d§io5, and in some MSS. of Tacitus the name is written Flavins. (Tac. Ann.xv. 49, 50, 58, 67 ; Dion Cass. Ixii. 24.) [W. B. D.] FLAVUS, SULPI'CIUS, a companion of the emperor Claudius I., who assisted the imperial stu- dent in the composition of his historical works. {Sxiet.aaud.4,i.) [Claudius,L] [W.B.D.] FLAVUS TRICIPTl'NUS, LUCRE'TIUS. [Triciptinus.] FLAVUS, VIRGI'NIUS, a rhetorician, who lived in the first century a. d., and was one of the preceptors of A. Persius Flaccus, the poet. (Suet. Persii Vita ; Burmann, Fraefat. ad Cic. Herennium, ed. SchUtz. p. xiv.) [W. B. D.] FLORA, the Roman goddess of flowers and spring. The writers, whose object it was to bring the Roman religion into contempt, relate that Flora had been, like Acca Laurentia, a courtezan, who accumulated a large property, and bequeathed it to the Roman people, in return for which she was honoured with the annual festival of the Flo- ralia. (Lactant. i. 20.) But her worship was established at Rome in the very earliest times, for a temple is said to have been vowed to her by king