The patrician Flaccus became a friend, political patron, and ally of the young
plebeian senator Marcus Porcius Cato, later called Cato the Elder, during the earlier years of the
Second Punic War. Flaccus is possibly the Valerius Flaccus who was a
military tribune in 212 BC, serving under the consuls who captured
Hanno's camp at
Beneventum. Flaccus was
curule aedile in 201 BC. He was probably the L. Valerius Flaccus who was a
legate under the praetor
Lucius Furius Purpureo in
Gaul in 200. As
praetor in 199, he was assigned to the
province of Sicily. Flaccus received
Italy as his province when he was consul in 195 BC, and continued to wage war as
proconsul the following year against the Gauls, with a victory over the
Insubres at
Mediolanum. In 191 Flaccus was a legate under
Manius Acilius Glabrio in the
war against the Aetolians and at the
Battle of Thermopylae. In 190, Flaccus served on the three-man commission (
triumviri coloniis deducendis) created to strengthen
Placentia and
Cremona. His fellow commissioners were M. Atilius Serranus (praetor 174 BC) and L. Valerius Tappo (praetor 192 BC). The following year, the commission founded Bononia (modern
Bologna) as a
Roman colony (colonia). In a "hotly contested" election, Flaccus became
censor along with Cato in 184. Their censorship was noted for its severity:
Lucius Quinctius Flamininus, the consul of 192, was kicked out of the
Roman Senate;
Scipio Asiaticus, the consul of 190, lost his
equestrian rank; and public contracts were leased stringently. The two men shared common
conservative political sympathies and cultural outlook, and were loyal to the military and political views of the older generation represented by
Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus. Both he and Cato sought to defend Roman tradition against
Hellenism. He initiated construction of the
Via Flacca, named after him. Flaccus was a member of the
College of Pontiffs from 196, when he succeeded
Marcus Cornelius Cethegus, until his death. In 186 BC he was one of three former consuls mentioned in the
senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus, who formed the committee for drawing up the report. Flaccus became
princeps senatus when
Scipio Africanus died in 183. He himself died three years later. ==References==