Gaius Valerius Flaccus ( early 1st century BC) was a Roman general, politician and statesman. He was consul of the Roman Republic in 93 BC and a provincial governor in the late-90s and throughout the 80s.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. 9, 10 (note 4), 18, 58–59, 61, 64, 70, 77–78, 628. He is notable for his balanced stance during the Sullan civil wars, the longevity of his term as governor, and his efforts to extend citizenship to non-Romans.

He followed a normal course of magisterial roles in his younger years, culminating in his consulship, the highest civil rank in republican Rome. In 92 he was appointed governor of one or both of the Roman provinces in Hispania, inheriting a bloody insurrection. He suppressed it and governed for a lengthy period, with noted punctilio to legal procedures. At some point in the 80s Flaccus was appointed governor of Gallia Transalpina (southern France); it is possible that at the same time he was also governor of Gallia Cisalpina (northern Italy). It is not known whether he retained his governorships in Hispania at the same time.

Flaccus remained neutral in the series of conflicts between the Marius-Cinna faction and that of Sulla, until his brother Lucius Flaccus was killed by a supporter of Marius and Cinna. He then shifted towards supporting Sulla, without overtly declaring for him. Sulla triumphed in 82 and Flaccus celebrated a triumph under his dictatorship.

Life and career Valerius Flaccus was praetor, a senior administrative and judicial position, sometime before 95 BC, most probably in 96.Based on the date of his consulship and evidence from Cicero, Pro Balbo 55, and Valerius Maximus 1.1.1; Broughton, Magistrates, p. 10. An inscription from Claros (in modern Turkey) indicates that following his praetorship and before 95 he held a promagisterial, or senior military, command in the Roman province of Asia.T. Corey Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic (Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 442 online and p. 552 online. Both he and his brother Lucius, who was a governor of Asia in the late 90s and again for 85, are honored as patrons of the city of Colophon in Ionia.Claude Eilers, Roman Patrons of Greek Cities (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 79 online and p. 137 online. Lucius was murdered before he reached his province for the year of 85. The two are the first Roman governors known to be addressed as patrons of a free city, a practice that became common in the 60s BC.Richard Gordon with Joyce Reynolds, "Roman Inscriptions 1995–2000," Journal of Roman Studies 93 (2003), p. 225.

Flaccus may have been a candidate for the consulship of 94, losing to the novus homo ("new man") Gaius Coelius Caldus, who is said to have run against two nobiles and beaten one of them.Commentariolum Petitionis 11. It was not unusual for a defeated candidate to run again the following year, as Flaccus did, often with success.T.R.S. Broughton, "Candidates Defeated in Roman Elections: Some Ancient Roman 'Also-Rans'," Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 81 (1991), pp. 19–20 online. Flaccus was successful in being elected as a consul in 93; his colleague was M. Herennius.David L. Vagi, Coinage and History of the Roman Empire (Taylor & Francis, 1999), vol. 1, p. 33 online. The election is discussed more fully by E. Badian, "Notes on Provincial Governors," Proceedings of the African Classical Associations (1958), as republished in Studies in Greek and Roman History (New York 1964), p. 94.

Proponent of citizenship In 96, while praetor urbanus, the senior magistrate of the city of Rome, Flaccus sponsored legislation to grant citizenship to Calliphana of Velia, a priestess of Ceres.Cicero, Pro Balbo 55; Valerius Maximus 1.1.1; Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic, p. 472 online. Julius Caesar, in his account of the Gallic Wars, identifies the Helvian Celt Caburus as another recipient of citizenship from Flaccus, during his time as governor of Gallia Transalpina. Caburus followed custom in assuming his patron's gentilic name Gaius Valerius.Julius Caesar, Bellum Gallicum 1.47.4. This interest in expanding citizenship may be viewed in the context of the family's moderate popularism and their relations with social inferiors. Ernst Badian noted that the Valerii Flacci "were given to taking up new men and families: inscriptions (Inschr. V. Magn. 144f.) reveal a policy of low-class connections."E. Badian, "Waiting for Sulla," Journal of Roman Studies (1962), as republished in Studies in Greek and Roman History (New York 1964), p. 222.

Hispania

Flaccus succeeded Titus Didius as proconsul of Hispania Citerior, a province in north east Hispania, in 92, and assumed his post before the conclusion of his consulship in order to deal with an uprising among the Celtiberi, the major native group of the central-eastern Iberian Peninsula. The historian Appian says the revolt was motivated by the exceptional cruelty and treachery of Didius, who had dealt with unrest and crime among the poor by promising them land to live on and then luring them into a trap. When the families had assembled within a Roman fort for the required registration, Didius slaughtered them all.Appian, Iberica 100 online. While implying that the revolt against Didius was justified, Appian's account of the subsequent actions of Flaccus is not overtly critical. In an attempt to restore order, Flaccus engaged in armed conflicts that left 20,000 Celtiberi dead. At Belgida, however, the local senate refused to issue an official declaration of war against Rome, or were perhaps still deliberating. The rebels set fire to the structure and burned their own senators alive. The local reaction to the mass murder of their governing class was no doubt mixed. Flaccus appears to have been successful in halting large-scale violence, perhaps because he capitalized on any outrage or ambivalence within the community at the deaths of their senators and executed those responsible.

Flaccus remained in Hispania longer than any other Roman governor had up to that time, and he seems to have been in charge of Hispania Ulterior as well as Citerior.Leonard A. Curchin, Roman Spain (Routledge, 1991), p. 42 online; Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic, p. 502 online. His extended command probably resulted from the disruptions of the Social War and its aftermath, and the civil wars of the 80s. After stabilizing the region, Flaccus appears to have governed prudently and with respect to legal authority.J.S. Richardson, Hispaniae: Spain and the Development of Roman Imperialism, 218–82 BC (Cambridge University Press, 1986, reprinted 2004), pp. 159–160 online. One of the fullest discussions of Flaccus's provincial commands in Spain and Gaul is E. Badian, "Notes on Provincial Governors," pp. 88–96.

Contrebian water rights Flaccus remained in Hispania as governor at least until 87, as evidenced by the Tabula Contrebiensis, a bronze tablet on which are inscribed his civil laws pertaining to boundaries and water-rights arbitration. The document is written in LatinFor an English translation, see Rabun Taylor, "The Tabula Contrebiensis," in Public Needs and Private Pleasures: Water Distribution, the Tiber River and the Urban Development of Ancient Rome (L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2000), pp. 121–122 online. and based on Roman legal formulae, but the judges are the local senate of Contrebia Balaisca (near present-day Botorrita).Andrew Lintott, "The Roman Empire and Its Problems in the Late Second Century," in The Cambridge Ancient History: The Last Age of the Roman Republic, 146–43 B.C. (Cambridge University Press, 2000), vol. 9, pp. 22–23 online. Flaccus understood the legal issue as a distinction between ager publicus and ager privatus, publicly held and private land. He used a legal fiction to show how the principles of the two communities involved in the dispute could be applied mutually, and provided a Roman legal framework within which the Contrebians could cite precedent from Celtiberian law.Clifford Ando, "The Administration of the Provinces," in A Companion to the Roman Empire (Blackwell, 2006), pp. 184–185 online; Andrew Lintott, Imperium Romanum: Politics and Administration (Routledge, 1993), p. 155 online.

Gaul

At some point in the 80s Flaccus was appointed governor of Gallia Transalpina (Transalpina). The other Gallic province was Gallia Cisalpina (Cisalpina), the ethnically Celtic north of Italy. The two Gallic provinces were often governed jointly, and no other promagistrate is recorded for Cisalpina, for the period 87–82, so Flaccus may well have governed both provinces jointly. Scholars have been unable to determine the extent to which Flaccus's terms as governor in Hispania and Gaul were overlapping or sequential, as a continuous line of succession can rarely be traced for any province. A dual governorship of both provinces has been disparaged as "unprecedented",Leonard A. Curchin, Roman Spain (Routledge, 1991), p. 42. but no other promagistrate is documented for Hispania in this period, and since the senate only began assigning Transalpine Gaul as a regular provincia in the mid-90s, administrative arrangements were still evolving. By 85, Flaccus was "firmly installed" in Transalpina, though Cicero, as Badian notes, refrains from calling him the lawful governor there.E. Badian, "Notes on Provincial Governors," p. 95; that he was there in 83 is attested by Julius Caesar, Bellum Gallicum 1.47.4. He was acclaimed imperator and retained his province until he celebrated a triumph over Celtiberia and Gaul in 81.Granius Licinianus, 36.31.5.Cicero, Pro Quinctio 24 and 28; Bobbio Scholiast 96 (in Stangl); Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic, p. 363 online. It is possible to argue that by the mid-80s, Flaccus was responsible for both Gallia Transalpina and Cisalpina, as well as Hispania Ulterior and Citerior.Brennan, The Praetorship in the Roman Republic, p. 363 online.

The longevity of Flaccus's command has been cited as evidence that the prolongment of Julius Caesar's term in Gaul in the 50s, and the five-year proconsular commands granted to Pompeius Magnus and Marcus Crassus after their joint consulship in 55, were less exceptional than has sometimes been thought.Ronald T. Ridley, "The Extraordinary Commands of the Late Republic: A Matter of Definition," Historia 30 (1981), p. 294, especially note 43.

The case of Quinctius In 83 BC, Flaccus was brought into a property dispute between Publius Quinctius and Naevius. Quinctius had inherited land in Transalpina from his brother, Gaius Quinctius, along with attached debts. Naevius, who had been the brother's business partner, tried to foreclose on the property,Michael Lovano, The Age of Cinna: Crucible of Late Republican Rome (Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002), p. 65 online. and ejected Quinctius by force. Flaccus ruled that Naevius had seized the property improperly and ordered restitution.Andrew Lintott, Cicero as Evidence: A Historian's Companion (Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 51–55 online. Lintott presents an extensive discussion of the case pp. 43–59. Two years later, the case, still dragging on, helped launch the career of Cicero, who in 81 was a young advocate in his mid-twenties arguing on behalf of Quinctius: the speech survives as the extant pro Quinctio.D.H. Berry, Cicero: Political Speeches (Oxford University Press, 2006), p. xiii online.

Role in civil war