Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/187

Rh FLAVIUS. lead the proconsul. Flavius now went to Grac- cfius, and promising to bring about a reconciliation between him and those who had recently deserted the cause of the Romans, he prevailed upon him to accompany him to the spot where Mago was con- cealed. When he arrived there Mago mshed forth from his ambuscade, and Flavius immediately went over to the Carthaginians. A fierce contest then ensued, near a place called Campi Veteres, in which Tib. Sempronius Gracchus was killed. (Liv. XXV. 16 ; Appian, Annih. 35 ; Val. Max. v. 1. Ext. ^ 6.) 3. Q. Flavius, an augur who, according to Valerius Maximus (viii. 1. § 7), was accused be- fore the people by the aedile, C. Valerius, perhaps the same who was curule aedile in B.C. 199. (Liv. xxxi. 50, xxxii. 50.) When fourteen tribes had already voted against Flavius, and the latter again asserted his innocence, Valerius declared that he did not care whether the man was guilty or innocent provided he secured his punishment ; and the people, indignant at such conduct, ac- quitted Flavius. 4. Q. Flavius, of Tarquinii, in Etruria, was the murderer of the slave Panurgus (previous to B.C. 77), who belonged to C. Fannius Chaereas, and was to be trained as an actor, according to a contract entered into between Fannius Chaereas and Q. Roscius, the celebrated comedian. (Cic. pro Rose. Com. 11.) 5. L. Flavius, a Roman eques, who gave his evidence against Verres. in b. c. 70. He probably lived in Sicily, and was engaged in mercantile pursuits. (Cic. in Verr. i. 5, v. 59.) He appears to be the same as the L. Flavius who is mentioned as the procurator., that is, the agent or steward of C. Matrinius in Sicily. (Cic. in Verr. v. 7.) 6. C. Flavius, a brother of L. Flavius [No. 5], and likewise a Roman eques, was recommended by Cicero, in B. c. 46, to M'. Acilius, praetor of Sicily, as an intimate friend of C. Calpurnius Piso, the late son-in-law of Cicero. {Ad Fam. xiii. 31.) In some editions of Cicero ''s oration for Plancius (c. 42), we read the name of C. Flavius; but Garatoni and Wunder have shown that this is only an incorrect reading for C. (Alfius) Flavus. 7. L. Fi^vius was tribune of the people in B.C. 60 i and on the sugi^estion of Pompey, he brought forward an agrarian law, which was chiefly intended to benefit the veterans of Pompey, who at tlie same time very warmly supported the law. Jt was owing to the favour of Pumpey, which he thus acquired, that in B. c. 59 he was elected praetor for the year following. His friendship with Cicero seems likewise to have arisen from his connection with Pompey; and Cicero strongly re- commended him to his brother Quintus, who was praetor in Asia, where some bequest had been left to Flavius. Pompey had entrusted to his care young Tigranes of Armenia, but P. Clodius after- wards got possession of hiin, and Flavius tried in vain to recover the young prince. Cicero expressly mentions that Flavius was also a friend of Caesar, and hence it is not improbable that he may be the same as the Flavius whom Caesar, in b. c. 49, en- trusted with one legion and the province of Sicily (Cic. odAtt. i. 18," 19, ii. 1, x. 1; ad Q. Frat. i 2; Ascon. m Cic. Milan, p. 47, ed. Orelli; Dion Cass, xxxvii. 50, xxxviii. 50.) 8. C. Flavius, a friend of M Junius Brutus, whom he accompanied to Philippi in the capacity FLAVIUS. 178 of praefectus fuhrum. Flavius fell in the battle of Philippi, and Brutus lamented over his death. (C. Nep. ^«. 8; Cic. ad Att. xii. 17; Pseudo- Brut, ad Cic. i. 6, 17 ; Plut. Brut. 51.) 9. C. Flavius, a Uoman eques of Asta, a Roman colony in Spain. He and other equites who had before belonged to the party of Pompey, went over to Caesar in B.C. 45. {Bell. Hiapari. 26.) Whether he is the same as the C. Flavius who is mentioned among the enemies of Caesar Octavianus, and was put to death in B.C. 40, after the taking of Perusia, is uncertain. (Appian, B. C. v. 49.) [L. S.] CN. FLA' VI US, the son of a freedman, who is called by Livy Cneius, by Gellius and Pliny Annius, was born in humble circumstances, but became secretary to App. Claudius Caecus [Clau- dius, No. 10], and, in consequence of this con- nection, together with his own shrewdness and eloquence, attained distinguished honours in the commonwealth. He is celebrated in the annals of Roman law for having been the first to divulge certain technicalities of procedure, which previously had been kept secret as the exclusive patrimony ot the pontiffs and the patricians. The relative share which the pontifis, as such, and the patricians, who were not pontiffs, possessed in the administration and interpretation of early Roman law, cannot now be accurately determined. Among the portions of law whicji were kept in the knowledge of a few, were the greater part of the actus legitimi and the actiones legis. These appear to have included the whole of legal practice, the actus legitimi ordinarily designating the technicalities of private legal trans- actions, and the actiones legis the ceremonies of judicial procedure, although this distinction is not always observed. To the hidden law of practice belonged the rules of the Kalendar {Fasti), axidi the greater part of the Formulae. The rules of the Kalendar determined what legal acts were to be done, and what omitted, on particular days. The Formulae related chiefly to technical pleading, or, in other words, to that part of forensic practice which determined the mode of stating a claim and making a defence ; but there were also formulae for acts not connected with litigation, as manci- patio, sponsio, adoptio, and fornmlae of this latter kind cannot be supposed to have been so little known to the people at large as forms of pleading, whether oral or written, may have been. Fla- vius made himself master of the rules of the Kalendar and the formulae, either by stealing a book in which they had been laid down and re- duced to order by App. Claudius (Dig. 1. tit. 2. s. 2. §7), or by frequently consulting those who were able to give advice upon the subject, by noting down their answers, and by applying his sagacious intellect to discover the system from which such de- tached answers proceeded. Pliny {H.N. xxxiii. 1) says that Flavius pursued the latter course, at the recommendation of App. Claudius {ejus hortatu exceperat eos dies, eonsultando assidue sagaci in- genio). He thus picked the brains of the jurists he consulted {ah ipsis cautis jui-isconsultis eorum sapientiam compilavit, Cic. pro Mur. 11). The expressions of some writers who mention the pub- lication of Flavius seem to confine his discoveries to the rules of the Kalendar ; but there are other passages which make it likely that he published other rules connected with the legis actiones, espe- cially the formulae of pleading. (Compare Liv. ix. 46 ; Macrob. Sat. i. 15 ; Cic. de Fin. iv. 27,