User:Wikibiohistory/Sandbox3/Draft of Gaius Valerius Flaccus (flamen dialis)

References in Livy

Livy, Histories of Rome. Bk III: 5 (Crassus becomes Master of the Horse)

Year: approximately 209 BC - Quintus Fabius Maximus and Quintus Fulvius Flaccus are inaugarated consuls; Scipio is in Spain

Bk III: 8 Publius Licinius, as chief pontiff, forces a dissolute aristocrat Gaius Valerius Flaccus (flamen dialis) to become priest of Jupiter (=flamen dialis), here translated as "flamen of Jupiter", although he is unwilling. This Flaccus was the younger brother of the future consul and censor Lucius Valerius Flaccus.

"Publius Licinius, chief pontiff, compelled Caius Valerius Flaccus to be inaugurated flamen of Jupiter, against his will....I should willingly have passed over in silence the reason of a flamen's being compelled to be inaugurated, had he not become a good, from having been a bad character. In consequence of having spent his youth in idleness and debauchery, vices for which he had incurred the displeasure of his own brother, Lucius Flaccus, and the rest of his kinsmen, Caius Flaccus was chosen flamen by Publius Licinius, chief pontiff. As soon as his mind became occupied with the care of the sacred rites and ceremonies, he soon so completely divested himself of his former habits, that no one among all the youth was more esteemed, or enjoyed in a greater degree the approbation of the chief of the patricians, whether relations or aliens. Being raised by this generally good character to a proper confidence in himself, he claimed to be admitted into the senate; a thing intermitted for many years, on account of the worthlessness of former flamens. On entering the senate, Lucius Licinius, the praetor, led him out; on which the flamen appealed to the tribunes of the people. He demanded back the ancient privilege of his priesthood, which was given, together with the purple-bordered robe, and the curule chair, to the office of flamen. The praetor wished the question to rest not on the precedents contained in the annals, which were obsolete from their antiquity, but on the usual practice in all the cases of most recent date; urging, that no flamen of Jupiter, in the memory of their fathers or their grandfathers, had taken up that privilege. The tribunes giving it as their opinion, that justice required, that as the obliteration of the privilege was occasioned by the negligence of the flamens, the consequences ought to fall upon the flamens themselves, and not upon the office, led the flamen into the senate, with the general approbation of the fathers, and without any opposition, even from the praetor himself; while all were of opinion that the flamen had obtained his object more from the purity of his life, than any right appertaining to the priesthood."