Flavus

tribune of the plebs, B. C. 59. During Cicero's consulship Flavus seconded him in his measures against Catiline (Cic. pro Planc. 42), but in his tribunate he was a zealous supporter of all Caesar's acts and laws. (Cic. pro Sest. 53; Schol. Bob. in Sextian. p. 304, in Vatinian. p. 324, ed. Orelli.) This seems to have cost Flavus the aedileship. He was, however, praetor, B. C. 54, after at least one repulse. Flavus afterwards appears as quaestor, or special commissioner, at the trial of A. Gabinius (Cic. ad Q. Fr. 3.1.7), and at that of Cn. Plancius (Cic. pro Planc. 17). Cicero always speaks of Flavus as an honest and well-meaning, but mistaken man. [W.B.D]

a rhetorician who flourished in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. His reputation attracted to his school the elder Seneca [Seneca], then recently come to Rome from Corduba. Flavus himself was a pupil of Cestius Pius [Cestius], whom he eclipsed both in practice and fame as a teacher of rhetoric. He was regarded at Rome as a youthful prodigy, and lectured before he had assumed the dress of manhood. His master, Cestius, said that his talents were too precocious 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 youth 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. Flavus united poetry and history or natural philosophy (Plin. Nat. 9.8.25, and Elench. ix. xii. xiv. xv.) to rhetoric. (Senec. Controv. i. vii. x. xiv; Schott, de Clar. ap. Senec. Rhet. i. p. 374.) [W.B.D]

tribune of the Plebs in B. C. 44, and deposed from his office by C. Julius Caesar, because, in concert with C. Epidius Marullus, one of his colleagues in the tribunate, lie 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 witll 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, App. BC 2.108, 122, 4.93; Suet. Jul. 79, 80; D. C. 44.9, 10, 46.49; Plut. Caes. 61, Anton. 12; Vell. 2.68; Liv. Epit. cxvi.; Cic. Philipp. 13.15; V. Max. 5.7.2.) [W.B.D]

a tribune of the soldiers, B. C. 209. He rescued M. Claudius Marcellus from defeat by repulsing a charge of Hannibal's elephants. (Liv. 27.14.) Flavus was praetor urbanus, B. C. 184, and died in his year of office. (Liv. 39.32, 38, 39.) [W.B.D]

1. Sp. Lartius Flavus, consul B. C. 506. Dionysius (5.36) says that nothing was recorded of this consulship, and Livy omits it altogether. Niebuhr (Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 53(6) 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. A. R. 5.22, 23, 24, 36; Liv. 2.10, 11), and in the original lays they were the two warriors who stood beside Horatius Cocles 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. Rome, 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 together for the last time, the name of Herminius appears, but not that of Lartius. (Dionys. A. R. 5.3, &c.; Liv. 2.19, &c.) Lartius Flavus was consul a second time in B. C. 490 (Dionys. A. R. 7.68) ; warden of the city (5.75, 8.64); one of the five envoys sent to the Volscian camp when Coriolanus besieged Rome (8.72); and interrex for holding the consular comitia B. C. 480 (8.90), in which year he counselled war with Veii (ib. 91).

2. T. Lartius Flavus, brother of No. 1, consul B. C. 501, and again B. C. 498. In this second consulship he took the town of Fidenae. (Dionys. A. R. 5.50, 59, 60; Liv. 2.21.) 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 absolute than the ancient monarchy, since there was no appeal from its authority. (Dict. of Ant. s. v. Dictator.) T. Lartius Flavus was the first dictator (Dionys. A. R. 5.71; Liv. 2.18) : lie received the imperium 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. A. R. 5.76, 77.) According to one account (id. 6.1 ; comp. Liv. 2.8), 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. A. R. 6.81), and in the same year he served as legatus to the consul, Postumus 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. 2.29), and this agrees with the character of him by Dionysius (ll. cc.) as a mild and just man. [W.B.D]

or Fla'vius, SU'BRIUS, tribune in the Praetorian guards, and most active agent in the conspiracy against Nero, A. D. 66, which, from its most distinguished member, was called 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, had 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. Dio Cassius calls him Σούβιος Φλάβιος, and in some MSS. of Tacitus the name is written Flavius. (Tac. Ann. 15.49, 50, 58, 67; D. C. 62.24.) [W.B.D]

a companion of the emperor Claudius I., who assisted the imperial student in the composition of his historical works. (Suet. Cl. 4, 41.) [Claudius, I.] [W.B.D]

[Triciptinus.]

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, Praefat. ad Cic. Herennium, ed. Schütz. p. xiv.) [W.B.D]

(1) L. Caesetius, a tribune of the people, deposed from his office in B.C. 44 by Julius Caesar for having removed the crowns from Caesar's statues and for imprisoning a person who had saluted Caesar by the title of rex. At the next election for consul, Flavus received many votes, and for his defiant bearing towards the dictator enjoyed a considerable popularity (Suet. Caes. 79, 80; Plut. Caes. 61; Ant. 12).

(2) Subrius, an officer in the Praetorian Guards who took an active part in Piso's conspiracy against Nero in A.D. 66 (Dio Cass. lxii. 24).