Flaccus, Fu'lvius
5. Q.
Fulvius Flaccus, Q. F. M. N., one of the four sons of Q. Fulvius Flaccus No. 2. In B. C. 185 he was aedilis curulis designatus; and as the city praetor, C. Decimus, had just died, he offered himself as a candidate for his place, but without success, notwithstanding his great exertions, and it was not till B. C. 182, that he received the office of praetor, with Hispania Citerior as his province. On his arrival there, he expelled the Celtiberians, who were in possession of the town of Urbicua, which he took, and soon after he defeated the Celtiberians in a great battle, in which 23,000 of them are said to have been slain and 4000 taken prisoners.
After the reduction of the town of Contrebia he gained a second great victory over the Celtiberians, whereupon the greater part of them submitted to the Romans.
At the end of the year of his praetorship, when he was returning from his province, he was allowed to take with him to Rome those soldiers who had most distinguished themselves in the great battles he had gained, and public thanksgivings were decreed at Rome for his successful campaign.
But when he set out for Italy, the Celtiberians, who probably thought that he was going to carry out some hostile scheme against them, attacked him in a narrow defile. Notwithstanding his disadvantageous position, he again gained a complete victory, the merit of which was chiefly owing to his cavalry. The Celtiberians, after having lost no less than 17,000 of their men, took to flight. Fulvius Flaccus vowed games in honour of Jupiter, and to build a temple to Fortuna equestris, and then returned to Italy.
He celebrated his victories with a triumph in B. C. 180, and was elected consul for the year following, together with his brother, L. Manlius Acidinus Fulvianus (this name arose from his being adopted into the family of Manlius Acidinus).
The games in honour of Jupiter were sanctioned by the senate and celebrated.
He carried on a war against the Ligurians, who were defeated, and whose camp was taken. On his return to Rome, he celebrated a second triumph on the same day on which the year before he had triumphed over the Celtiberians. In B. C. 174 he was made censor, with A. Postumius Albinus.
In his censorship, his own brother, Cn. Fulvius Flaccus, was ejected from the senate, and (Q. Fulvius Flaccus now set about building the temple which he had vowed in Spain, and which was to be more magnificent than any other at Rome. For this purpose he took down half the roof of the temple of Juno Lacinia, in Bruttium, in order to use the marble slabs to form the roof of his new structure. The Bruttians suffered the sacrilege from fear; but when the ship containing the marble arrived at Rome, the manner in which the ornament had been obtained became known.
The consuls summoned him before the senate, which not only disapproved of his conduct, but ordered the marble slabs to be sent back, and expiatory sacrifices to be offered to Juno.
The commands of the senate were obeyed, but as there was no architect in Bruttium able to restore the marble slabs to their place, they were deposited in the area of the temple, and there they remained.
After his censorship Q. Fulvius Flaccus became a member of the college of pontiffs; but he began to show symptoms of mental derangement, which was looked upon by the people as a just punishment for the sacrilege he had committed against the temple of Juno. While in this condition, he received intelligence that of his two sons who were serving in Illyricum, one had died, and the other was dangerously ill.
This appears to have upset his mind completely, and he hung himself in his own bedchamber, B. C. 173. (
Liv. 39.39,
56,
40.1,
16,
30, &c., 35-44, 53, 59, 41.27, 42.3, 28 ; Veil. Pat. 1.10, 2.8; Appian,
App. Hisp. 42;
V. Max. 1.1.20,
2.5.7; Cic.
in Verr. 1.41.)
