Flaccus, Ver'rius
a freedman by birth, and a distinguished grammarian, in the latter part of the first century B. C. His reputation as a teacher of grammar, or rather philology, procured him the favour of Augustus, who took him into his household, and entrusted him with the education of his grandsons, Caius and Lucius Caesar. Flaccus lodged in a part of the palace which contained the Atrium Catilinae. This was his lecture-room, where he was allowed to continue his instructions to his former scholars, but not to admit any new pupils, after he became preceptor of the young Caesars. If we receive Ernesti's correction of Suetonius (Octav. 86), it was the pure and percritics spicuous Latinity of Verrius, not Veranius, Flaccus, which Augustus contrasted with the harsh and obsolete diction of Annius Cimber. Flaccus rethe ceived a yearly salary of more than 800l. He died at an advanced age, in the reign of Tiberius. At the lower end of the market-place at Praeneste was a statue of Verrius Flaccus, fronting the Hemicyclium, on the inner curve of which, so as to be visible to all persons in the forum (Vitr. 5.1), were set up marble tablets, inscribed with the Fasti Verriani. These should be distinguished from the Fasti Praenestini. The latter, like the similar Fasti of Aricium, Tibur, Tusculum, &c. were the townrecords. But the Fasti of Flaccus were a calendar of the days and vacations of public business--dies fasti, nefasti, and intercisi--of religious festivals, triumphs, &c., especially including such as were peculiar to the family of the Caesars. In 1770 the foundations of the Hemicyclium of Praeneste were discovered, and among the ruins were found portions of an ancient calendar, which proved to be fragments of the Fasti Verriani. Further portions were recovered in subsequent excavations, and Foggini, an Italian antiquary, reconstructed from them the entire months of January, March, April, and December, and a small portion of February was afterwards annexed. (Franc. Foggini, Fastorum Ann. Roman. Reliquiae, &c. Rom. 1779, fol. ; and Dict. of Antiq. s. v. Fasti.) They are also given at the end of Wolf's edition of Suetonius, 8vo. Lips. 1802, and in Orelli's Inscriptiones Latinae, vol. ii. p. 379.Works
Flaccus was an antiquary, an historian, a philologer, and perhaps a poet; at least Priscian (viii. p. 792) ascribes to him an hexameter line, “Blanditusque labor molli curabitur arte.” It is seldom possible to assign to their proper heads the fragments of his numerous writings. But the following works may be attributed to him:--