User:Appietas/Lucius Valerius Flaccus (praetor 63 BC)

Lucius Valerius Flaccus praetor 63 (103 - c.53 B.C.)

One of the outstanding military men (viri militares) of the nobility in Cicero's generation. In an unusually active career the only provinces of the empire he is not attested serving in are Sicily, Sardinia and Gallia Cisalpina, and he certainly travelled through the latter on the far ranging embassy of 60 BC.
His trial for extortion in 59 BC following his command of Asia province is the subject of Cicero's defense speech pro L. Flacco, extant almost complete (delivered autumn 59, written in 57 or 56 BC). Cicero emphasizes his reputation and career as a military man. Most of this service was spent in the arduous task of rooting out pirates from their most important bases, and suppressing collaborators, in Pamphylia and Crete.

Birth, lineage & family

Birthdate, 103 B.C. According to the terms of the lex Cornelia annalis he must have turned at least 40 during his praetura in 63, so born in or before 103 BC. Cicero says he was still a child puer in spring 86 when he set out for the Mithradatic War in the company of his father the consul. The toga of manhood was usually granted when a lad turned 17, so born after 104 BC. Thus, by combination and convergence of these two points, born in 103, and held his praetura suo anno.

His family was one of the leading patrician houses, descended from the warlord P. Valerius (Poplios Valesios) who drove out the kings and co-founded the Republic, and his immediate ancestors had held a consulate in each of the last six generations, a feat equalled under the Republic only by the Corneli Scipiones and Caecili Metelli.
Son of L. Valerius Flaccus (cos.suff.86), while C. Valerius Flaccus (cos.93) was his paternal uncle.
His paternal filiation, son of Lucius, is also independently attested by the statue-base inscriptions in his honour in Asia province from 62-1 B.C., which are also the source for the names of his mother Baebia, wife Saufeia and daughter Valeria Paulla. His mother was probably of the plebeian consular house of Baebi Tamp(h)ili.

Wife. Saufeia L. f. c.80 in his early twenties. Children. Valeria Paulla (born c.79/8), Lucius (c.72-48)

Career

Career Summary

comes or contubernalis of his father the consul in the East 86, fleeing to his uncle after Flavius Fimbria engineered the assassination of his father in Bithynia.
miles under his paternal uncle Caius in Gallia Transalpina, 85-82, where he will have taken an active part in his uncle's heavy fighting against the Galli and stayed at Massilia from time to time.

tr.mil. to P. Servilius pro cos. in Cilicia, 78-74
(fellow military tribunes in the same army included T. Labienus and C. Caesar)
Quaestor 71 (or 70) to M. Pupius Piso Frugi (pr.c.72, cos.61) in Spain
probably also pro quaestore 70-69 because Piso's Spanish command (whence he triumphed) probably lasted a biennium (71-69).
Legatus to Q. Metellus in the war against Cretan piracy war, 68-65
Praetor urbanus 63
Commander Asia province, pro cos., 62-1
Second ranking (vir praetorius) on the IIIviral legation to far Gallia beyond the Transalpina in 60 BC, which was headed by his old commander Q. Metellus Creticus.
Legatus to L. Piso Caesoninus pro cos. in Macedonia, 57-56 (with another renowned military expert, Q. Marcius Crispus)

Early career, 86-64 B.C.

Still a technically a child (under 17) when he accompanied his father the consul to the East in 86.

It is worth quoting the pro Flacco fragments on his shocking introduction to public life.

The Milan Fragment: "As a boy he set off for war in the company of his father the consul".

Schol.Bobiens.p.96S (ad loc.): "But if …………………………….

Cic.Flacc.63: Neque vero te, Massilia, praetereo quae L.Flaccum militem quaestoremque cognosti.

The difficulty and danger of his winter journey (86-5 BC) from the Hellespont to Massilia does not seem to have received any comment. He must have taken the land route back through Macedonia and Illyricum, presumably sailed up the Adriatic to Aquileia and then across the Transpadane lands and the western Alpine passes to the relative safety of the Via Domitia. Avoiding Cinnan Italy was his choice, and most Cinnani will have been sympathetic if asked. But his father, with a consular army, had had all sorts of trouble along the Via Egnatia owing to the Pontic occupation and above all the infestation of waves of Balkan raider nations. Young L.Flaccus (aged 17) will have undergone the harshest trials of endurance and courage in making his way back along that same route, with no more than a handful of companions and a few slaves.

He will have returned to Rome in 82/1 with his uncle Gaius and participated in the latter's triumph (from Gallia and Spain) authorized by Sulla. Soon afterwards (c.80) he married his wife Saufeia.

He seems to have served as a military tribune throughout Servilius Vatia's four years of arduous campaigning (78-75 BC) against bandit towns and forts in the western reaches of the Taurus range and against pirate bases on the Pisidian and Pamphylian coasts: one of the three key wars in the Roman suppression of Mediterranean piracy (the others were Metellus Creticus' Cretan War, 68-65, and Pompey's all-Mediterranean sweep in 67).

He probably also took part in Servilius' triumph from this command in 74 BC.

he fled to his uncle C.Flaccus commanding in the Transalpina after Fimbria's murder of his father - Cic.Flacc.Milan fragment

Evidently he remained with his uncle until the latter returned to Rome to hold his triumph in 81; Massalia saw him as a 'soldier' (Cic.Flacc. ) so while he may have held a place on his uncle's council, or simply served in the cavalry, he certainly held no rank which was only fitting given his age (18-22) and lack of experience.

All that is known of his Spanish quaestura is that he served the commander M. Pupius Piso and visited Massilia on the outward journey, and/or the homeward Both Cicero's speech and Asconius' summary account of Pupius Piso’s career only define his province as Hispania, suggesting that he may have commanded both provinces in succession to Metellus Pius (ulterior) and Pompey Magnus (citerior), who both returned to Italy and triumphs in 71 BC. There can be no doubt that he distinguished himself under Piso in Spain and will have contributed a good deal to the successes for which the latter (more of a scholar and gentleman than a soldier) was awarded a triumph, mopping up the last embers of the gruelling Sertorian War among the Spaniards (die-hard Sertoriani escaped north into Aquitania which was beyond the frontiers of Gallia Transalpina. The evidence is an argument from silence which Cicero mentions himself. It was the tradition of prosecutors to criticize every possible aspect of a defendant's life and career, but at L. Flaccus' trial in autumn 59 B.C. D. Laelius and the other Pompeian prosecutors said nothing about his Spanish service.

Flaccus presumably took part in Piso's triumph of 69 B.C., the third in which had participated. This was a rare circumstance and no doubt contributed significantly to his fame as a vir militaris.

Senior legate to Q. Metellus in the Cretan War, probably as legatus pro praetore, when he was put in charge of the Greek province appended to Metellus' command as his operational base and was personally active in Thessaly, Boeotia, Attica and Laconia. He also seems to have directed a substantial part of the war in Crete, by land and sea, on his own and in company with Metellus. Once again his prosecutors in 59 B.C. said nothing about this war, this time no doubt for good political reasons too. Pompey's obsession with military glory and foreign clientelae, and his jealousy of every other successful commander, reached such fever pitch by autumn 67 BC, while he waited impatiently in SW Anatolia for his political allies in Rome to secure him the Mithradatic War command, that he committed high treason in sending his legate L. Octavius to assist the Cretans against Metellus’ army. Indeed during the winter (67-66) he actually made advanced preparations to embark part of his army and attack Metellus directly before the news of the lex Manilia and his new mandate redirected all his attentions to Mithradates and the east; even ignoring what was still left to be done mopping up the pirate war and reorganising the coasts (Cassius Dio xxxvi.45.1-2).

Flaccus’ responsibility for the Greek mainland and coastal waters under Metellus must have brought him into contact with L.Cornelius Sisenna in 67 when the latter was Pompeius’ legatus pro pr. responsible for the same stretch of sea. No record of this interaction survives but it was probably cooperative, and Sisenna died in this posting.

Note too that the commander of Asia province in 67-6 (when Pompeius was readying his expedition against Metellus in the ports of Pamphylia and Asia prov.) was the rabid personal enemy of Lucullus, L.Quinctius Rufus (tr.pl.74, pr.68), who also died in the course of this command, as did his quaestor Q.Servilius Caepio (M.Cato’s beloved uterine brother), whose daughter Lucullus married after returning to Rome.

Flaccus spent either two or three years under Metellus (it is not certain whether he stayed on in 65 while Metellus organised Crete into a permanent eastern Mediterranean command province, coupled with the Cyrenaica). In any case this service forced him to forgo an aedilitas (suus annus 66, elections in summer 67), but after returning to Rome in late 66 or 65 he had plenty of time to canvas for the praetura, suo anno, and was duly elected in summer 64. This was the period of Marcus Crassus’ close cooperation with the traditionalist Aristocratic grouping (optimates), led by the Luculli brothers, against burgeoning Pompeian power and the threat of civil war or dictatorship. In 64 Metellus Creticus wed his daughter to Crassus’ homonymous son (the resultant child was the later great commander M.Crassus cos.30, born 63 BC, famous for his Balkan campaigns in 30-28 BC when he became the last Roman commander to earn the coveted spolia opima by personally slaying a Bastarnian lord in battle, but was denied the great honour by the jealous and petty-minded coward Imp.Caesar).

Praetor 63 & the Catilinarian Conspiracy

As urban praetor in 63 Lucius Valerius' military experience, harshness and energy in support of Cicero (together with his colleagues Metellus Celer and Gaius Pomptinus) were important to the containment and suppression of the notorious plot hatched by the patricians L. Sergius Catilina and P. Lentulus Sura. His firm support of the new man consul made a mockery of the conspirators’ claims to be championing a causa patricia.

In Cicero’s eyes Flaccus ever remained one of the key partners in his most famous and effective political action. It was for this reason that he vigorously defended him in autumn 59, even against the wishes of Pompey, whose will Cicero was normally embarrassingly eager to court, appease and obey, and secured his acquittal despite all the time and enormous resources poured into the prosecution by the Pompeians.

Flaccus' most notable action in 63 was the interception of the envoys of the Allobroges at the Milvian bridge (mod. Ponte Molle), the via Flaminia crossing of the Tiber a few kilometers north of Rome. In concert with his colleague C. Pomptinus, on the orders of the consul Cicero. Following the arrest, Flaccus presented the incriminating confiscated correspondence to the Senate at Cicero's direction.

Despite a fine career as one of the most prominent viri militares of his time, he failed to gain the consulate obtained by six successive generations before him: a record unmatched except by Cornelii Scipiones and Caecilii Metelli (and later by the Domitii Ahenobarbi, but in a Caesarian context when the elections were fixed or non existent). This can only be explained by the determination of Pompeius to block him at every turn. The two men seem to have detested one another, and it seems that Pompeius assigned his new man client Lucius Afranius to his 60 BC consulate as a deliberate slight to Lucius Valerius (whose suus annus was precisely that year). The next year was Flaccus' best chance, and he was the logical patrician opponent to Caesar's candidature. Instead he accepted a position on the IIIviral legation deep into Gallia Comata in Jan 60 BC, probably at the urging of his old commander Metellus Creticus who headed the mission (see Cic.ad Att. …. ), and he probably didn't return in time for the elections even if they were held in autumn 60 (as they probably were). This Gallic legation (investigating reports of an impending en masse Helvetic migration into Gallia and the German occupation of Sequanian lands) probably only returned in spring 59, bearing proposals of friendship from the German King Ariovistus who had seized upon the rich Sequanian territorium and was terrorizing the east Gallic nations, including Rome's traditional allies the Aedui. A formal pact of friendship and alliance with the German was ratified by the consul Caesar (cf.BG i. ). The rationale for that was in conformity with Roman imperial policy everywhere: everything which destabilized and weakened powerful nations beyond the frontiers (whether allies or foes) was good for Rome and to be encouraged.

Asia province command, 62-61 B.C.

Flaccus’ Asian command, summer 62 to summer 61 was controversial, in more ways than one. He seems to have pocketed an excessive amount of cash (i.e. illegal personal “tribute”) and certainly went out of his way to offend Pompeius, who was returning to Rome via his province in those years .....

His legati included Cn. Domitius Calvinus (q.ca.65, cos.53).

As a result he apparently held Pompey's flashy few months campaigning in 67 in contempt, and apparently said so while Commander of Asia when Magnus spent several months in his province on his way back to Rome in 62 BC. Pompey cuddled his self-forged reputation so dearly that he could never forgive these slurs. Flaccus apparently couldn't have cared less, and on his return from Asia in summer 61 supported the optimates (headed by the Luculli brothers and Metellus Creticus) in their heated conflict with the returned Pompey in 61-60 BC.

Prosecution and acquittal

In autumn 59 Flaccus was prosecuted in the Reclamations Court (i.e. for extortion) from Asia (by D. Laelius, C. Canuleius Decianus the son of his father's inimicus and a resident of Asia province, and L. Lucceius the Pompeian historian) at the instigation of Pompeius whose henchmen, Decianus and Laelius, had spent some time gathering evidence in the province (probably from the moment of Flaccus' departure in summer 61). Flaccus was acquitted, Ciceronis gratia, who made a good defence including one joke so dazzling that it alone was thought to have induced the acquittal despite Flaccus' manifest guilt (Furius Bibaculus ap.Macrobius Saturn. … ). Unfortunately Cicero decided not to include this quip in his written version of the speech (Macrobius ibid.); presumably because it was a bit ribald and not really germane to the case (it was perhaps at the expense of the prosecutor Canuleius Decianus, who had spent most of his life in Asia province, was noted for his Greek ways, and perhaps an overt homosexual).

Macedonica legatio

In spring 57 Flaccus went to Macedonia as legate to Caesar's father-in-law Piso Caesoninus (cos.58) together with another military expert, Quintus Marcius, and between them they won the battle for which L.Piso (not present) was hailed imperator

 - 

see Cic.In Pisonem 54, with Nisbet's comments ad loc. (Oxford commentary, 19.., pp. ).

His legatio under Piso Caesoninus in Macedonia (57-6 BC) attests a change of relations with the Gang of Three. The timing is especially notable because it seriously interfered with his aspirations for a consulate. Perhaps promises were made to him, and later broken. However, even the dynasts themselves cannot have foretold the circumstances which induced Pompeius and Crassus to share a second consulate (55), and before the end of that year Crassus had left for the east and was never to return. Flaccus' chances of a consulate with Pompey in charge of Rome were precisely nil. Note also Cato's championing of the consular candidacy of his brother-in-law Lucius Domitius ("consul designate from the cradle") and his failure to do anything for Flaccus, whose claims on the highest office were even stronger than those of the Ahenobarbi. Cato was related to Clodius and closely involved politically with Quintus Hortensius; Flaccus was neither. These points fit neatly with the situation in 58 BC (proposed above), after Lucius Lucullus departed the political scene, when Flaccus had more to gain from an accomodation with Crassus than following the new leadership of the optimates.

Last years

He returned to Rome before his (incompetent) commander, probably in 56, and Cicero's account of Piso's return in summer 55 makes it clear that their relationship had not been a cordial one. (In Pisonem .. ).

Flaccus appeared as a character witness for the aedilis Gnaeus Plancius during his trial for electoral bribery in 54. They had served together in the bellum Cretense under Q. Metellus.

This is the last that is heard of him, and he died sometime in the period 53/50 BC. Most likely in 53 or 52 (during the lacuna in Cicero's correspondence), perhaps succumbing to one of the morbi asiatici which claimed so many Roman lords. He only just made fifty, and had probably worn himself out by an unusually active military life.

Given his great name and heritage, and his important role against Catilina, he is conspicuous by his absence in the major political events of the 50s. Under the pressure of events in 63 Cicero's key adviser was the minor senator (but major intellectual) Publius Nigidius, not his official senior collaborators the praetors. Thus Flaccus appears to have been very much the courageous, capable and blunt soldier with little aptitude for the factional politics of the day. He came off worse in his personal feud with Pompey (three years his senior), although by no means alone in that regard. Generally a conservative, yet he must have inherited some Marian connections from his father. Lucius Lucullus appeared as a character-witness for him at his trial in autumn 59. Together with the trial itself (the prosecutor and his assistants were all Pompeians), this shows that he followed the Lucullan opposition to the Gang of Three that year. His career and character suggest that he will have had no sympathy with Clodius, nor with the brilliantly gifted dandy Quintus Hortensius (who loathed military service and refused the bellum Cretense command which fell to him by lot as cos.69, thus allowing his colleague Q. Metellus to take it up: and who sneakily conspired with Clodius to exile Cicero in 59-8). When Lucius Lucullus lost his marbles for the last year of his life (from about autumn 58 BC) Flaccus seems to have come to some agreement with Crassus, or else returned to one: Crassus was deeply involved with the optimates in opposition to Pompey from 64 (when his eldest son married a daughter of Metellus Creticus) until Clodius' incestus trial of summer 61.

References

Modern works

• Drumann/Groebe. W. Drumann Geschichte Roms, revised 2nd edition by P. Groebe (Leipzig, 1899-1929)
• RE s. v. Valerius 179
• OCD² s. v. Flaccus 7 (p.440, E. Badian)
• Münzer, Fr., Roman Aristocratic Parties and Families, Thérèse Ridley translation (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999) of the original Römische Adelsparteien und Adelsfamilien (J. B. Metzler, Stuttgart, 1920)