Whilst at Rome, Flaminio became acquainted with the celebrated Sannazzaro, and was honoured by the friendship of Baldassare Castiglione, to whom he dedicated some of his poetical pieces. Compelled by illness to seek a more genial climate, he went to Naples, in which city he frequented the meetings held by the famous controversialist Valdés, whose religious opinions Flaminio was suspected of having embraced; but having met with Cardinal Polo, he abandoned, at least apparently, all views contrary to the doctrines of the Roman church, and assisted the council of Trento, refusing, however, the appointment of secretary which had been offered him. Flaminio translated into Latin verse thirty psalms and many hymns; and published a collection of hymns and elegies entitled "Carmina de rebus divinis," besides many other ascetic works of lesser merit. His style is lofty, elegant, and harmonious. He died at Rome on the 18th of February, 1550.—A. C. M.
FLAMININUS, was the agnomen of a Roman family, a branch of the Quinctian gens; its principal ornaments were the two brothers, who form the subject of the following notices:—
Lucius Quinctius Flamininus had held the office of curule ædile and the city prætorship before his appointment, 198, b.c. to the command of the fleet commissioned to co-operate with his brother Titus against Philip V. of Macedon. Having formed a junction with the naval forces of Attains and the Rhodians, he reduced the principal fortresses of Eubœa, captured Cenchreæ, and invested Corinth. But this city, though attacked also by the Achæans, who had been induced to join the league against Philip, made a desperate resistance, and on the approach of the Macedonian succours under Philocles, Lucius reluctantly raised the siege and retired to Corcyra. In the following year he compelled Acarnania to submit; and afterwards took part in the operations against the Spartan tyrant Nabis. In his consulship, 184 b.c., he conquered the Ligurians in a battle near Pisa, and entered the territories of the Boiian Gauls. Cato in his censorship, 184 b.c., expelled him from the senate on a charge of lust and cruelty.
Titus Quinctius Flamininus, had served in the Punic war and held the governorship of Tarentum, before the war with Philip V. of Macedon opened to him the field in which he acquired the fame of an able captain and a skilful diplomatist. Though he was then little more than thirty years of age, and had not passed through the intermediate offices of ædile and prætor, he was invested with the consulship, 198 b.c., and hurried off to Greece where the Roman arms had hitherto made little progress. His first exploit was the forcing of the mountain pass, near Antigoneia, leading to the strong encampment of the Macedonian army. Throwing four thousand of his troops into the rear of their position, by an unsuspected track through the hills, he compelled them to retreat in disorder, and then overran the district of Epirus, while Philip drew off towards Thessaly to oppose an inroad of the Ætolians. From Epirus the consul penetrated into Phocis, captured Elatea, and gaining other advantages, followed Philip towards Thessaly. These events and the defection of the Achæans induced the latter to request a conference, which was held on the coast of the Maliac gulf; but a truce of a few months was the only result. When hostilities were resumed, Philip sought to enlist Nabis the tyrant of Sparta in his interests, but was betrayed by him, and lost his hold of Argolis. In the campaign of the following year, Flamininus being continued in his consular command, the Roman army proceeded into Bœotia and Phthiotis; contingents from Achaia, Ætolia, and other states, joined the standard of the consul; and at length a decisive battle was fought at Cynoscephalæ in southern Thessaly. The Macedonians, after an obstinate resistance, which rendered the issue for some time doubtful, were completely routed, and Philip fled with the remains of his army into Macedonia, leaving eight thousand of his men dead upon the field, and five thousand prisoners. Hopeless of repairing the disaster, he sued for peace, and was compelled to accept the terms which the victor dictated. These left him in undisputed possession of his own kingdom, for it was not the interest of Rome to disturb the balance of power in Greece; but he was required to surrender his fleet, to pay an indemnity of one thousand talents, and to withdraw all his forces from the territories of the other states. Thus the struggle terminated, and Rome has had few prouder days in her history than that in which Flamininus at the grand old Isthmian games, amid the pageant memorials of the Hellenic faith and culture, proclaimed freedom and independence to the sons of those who fell at Marathon and Thermopylae. He remained in Greece for some years longer to aid in adjusting the boundaries of the several states, and in rearranging their political constitutions. The only military enterprise which still demanded his attention, was the power which the Spartan tyrant Nabis had acquired in Argolis. The capture of Gythium and the blockade of his capital, compelled that prince to accept conditions of peace, which, while they left him in possession of his Laconian dominions, added Argolis to the number of the enfranchised states. In 194 b.c. Flamininus returned home and was honoured with a magnificent triumph. Meanwhile Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, at whose court Hannibal had taken refuge, was preparing to carry his arms into Europe; and in 192 b.c. he invaded Greece by the invitation of the restless Ætolians. In the negotiations which attended this new disturbance, while the conduct of the military operations was in other hands, Flamininus rendered important service by his influence among the Greeks, and his skilful diplomacy. At a later period, when it was known that Hannibal was at the court of Prusias, king of Bithynia, endeavouring to persuade that ambitious but timid prince to schemes which the Romans naturally suspected, Flamininus was sent to demand the surrender of the aged Carthaginian general; but the latter before he could be seized poisoned himself. Flamininus, who had been censor in 190 b.c. held the office of augur a few years before his death, which happened about 170 b.c.—W. B.
FLAMINIUS, Caius, was one of the tribunes at Rome, 232 b. c. and proposed an agrarian law for distributing and colonizing a portion of the territory recently conquered from the Cisalpine Gauls. It met with violent opposition from the senate, but was ultimately carried into effect by the expression of the popular will; being the first recorded instance of a, plebiscitum, or resolution of the plebeian tribal assemblies, becoming law without a senatus-consultum, or decree of the senate. It had an evil consequence beyond the aggravation of animosities within the city, for the mistrust with which it was viewed by the Gallic states, led to the formidable invasion which, seven years later, surged up within fifty or sixty miles of Rome. In the third year of the war that ensued Flaminius held the consulship, and gained an important victory in Insubria beyond the Po; he and his colleague, Furius, being the first who led a Roman army across that river. His censorship, 220 b.c., was rendered famous by a careful revision of the civic polls, and by two public works—the paving of the road to Ariminum, and the construction of a new arena for equestrian exercise; these were called after him the Via Flaminia and the Circus Flaminius. In his second consulship, 217 b.c., he had to take the field against Hannibal, who had crossed the Po and defeated Sempronius near the Trebia. Flaminius did not reach his army at Ariminum till after the invader had passed that place on his march towards Rome. Hastily breaking up from his position and following, he reached the lake Trasimenus, and was marching amid a fog along its shores, when the Carthaginians came pouring down from the heights, and gained a signal victory, in which the consul and nearly his whole army perished.—W. B.
FLAMINIUS NOBILIUS or FLAMINIO NOBILI. See Nobili.
FLAMSTEED, John, the first astronomer royal of England, was born at Denby, near Derby, on the 19th August, 1646. His father, who is said to have been a maltster, gave him such an education as Derby could supply, and at an early age he exhibited a passion for the construction and use of astronomical instruments. Having while bathing caught a cold which produced a severe affection in his knee-joint, he went to Ireland in 1665 to consult a Mr. Greatrakes, who professed to cure such complaints by a particular process of manipulation. On his return to Derby uncured, he prosecuted his astronomical studies with great success. He wrote a tract on the "Equation of Time," which Dr. Wallis published in his edition of the works of Horrox, and he assisted Sir Jonas Moore in preparing the part of his system of mathematics which treats of the doctrine of the spheres. In 1674 Sir Jonas proposed to place under the charge of Flamsteed an observatory which he meant to erect at Chelsea; but the attention of Charles II. having been turned to astronomy by the proposal of a French gentleman for finding the longitude at sea, his majesty, in 1675, appointed Flamsteed his "astronomical observator," and he carried on his observations at the queen's house in Greenwich Park till 1676, when the royal
