1 Earliest Rome

S. P R I E S T S A N D P R I E S T E S S E S
Livy, History XXVU.8,4-10
Flaccus - an, at first, unwilling and apparently unsuitable candidate for the
office. As he 'makes good', Flaccus asserts his right to take a seat in the senate.
The underlying principle of his argument is that, even for a flamen Diads (wizU
all his restrictions), religious office-holding implied a political role in the state.
He later held political office as aedilis and praetor.
See further: Vol. 1, 56, 106-8; Warde Fowler (1911) 342-3*; Vanggaard
(1988) 59-69.
And Pubhus Licinius, the pontifex maximus, forced Gaius Valerius Flaccus to be installed as
fldmen Dialis, although he was unwilling to take the office; while Gaius Laerorius was made
decemvir in the place of Quintus Mucius Scaevola, who had died. The
reason for installing 2, fldmen under compulsion 1 would gladly have passed over in silence,
were it not for the fact that in the process his reputation changed from bad to good. It was
on account of the irresponsibility and extravagance of his youth - vices which brought him
the odium of his twin brother Lucius Flaccus and other relatives - that Gaius Flaccus was
chosen flamen by Publius Licinius, the pontifex maximus. 1
As soon as his attention turned
to the responsibility for religious rituals and ceremonies, he pur aside his former ways so
suddenly that no young man in the dry was deemed more outstanding or meritorious by
leading senators, both those within his own family and strangers alike. The unanimity of
this approbation enhanced his rightful sense of self-confidence; and he claimed an
entitlement that had long been in abeyance because of the unworthiness of former
famines, namely that he should be admitted to the senate. When he entered the senate
house, Publius Licinius, the praetor, marched him straight out again; so he appealed to the
tribunes of the people. The flamen was claiming the ancient right of his priesthood, which
he said had been given to the office of flamen along with the togapraetexta 2
chair of state . 1
and the official
The y^wtor would have it that the decision depended not on
long outmoded precedents from historical records, but on the most recent standard
practice: no flamen Dialis, he said, within the memory of their fathers or grandfathers had
ever made use of that right. The tribunes gave judgement as follows: that, as the
entitlement had fallen into disuse through the indolence of the famines, the loss should be
deemed to have fallen on the individual priests themselves, not on the office. Then, with no
opposition even from the praetor himself and to the general approval of senators and
people, they conducted the flamen into the senate; while everyone considered that the
flamen had achieved his object more because of the purity of his life than because of any
particular right attached to his priestly office.
200
1. Presumably the intention was to force him to change his ways.
2. This toga (with a purple stripe) was worn by priests as well as senior magistrates, and
children hefore assuming the adult toga.
3. Chair used by senior magistrates.