Flavius, Gnaeus
The secretary to the censor Appius Claudius Caecus, and memorable for having made public
certain technicalities of legal procedure that had previously been known to the patricians
alone. These were the
actiones legis, the rules of the Calendar, the
formulae, etc. He was made a senator by Claudius, and was curule aedile in
B.C. 303, a choice which so disgusted the patricians that the greater part of the nobles laid
aside their insignia—the gold rings and
phalerae. Flavius met
their contemptuous treatment with great coolness and hauteur, and a number of anecdotes are
preserved of this rivalry. See Pliny,
H. N. xxxiii. 1;
Cic. Pro Mur.
11;
Livy, ix. 46;
Gell. vii. 9.