Quintus Fulvius Flaccus

Who is Quintus Fulvius Flaccus?

Quintus Fulvius Flaccus, son of Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, Quintus was consul in 237 BC, fighting the Gauls in northern Italy. He was censor in 231 BC, again consul in 224 BC, when he subdued the Boii. He was a praetor in 215 BC and in the following year Master of Horse.

Consul again 212 BC, fighting the Second Punic War, he won a victory over Hanno the Elder, capturing his camp at Beneventum, then he was defeated by Hannibal at the first Battle of Capua, then captured Capua in 211 BC while serving as proconsul. In his fourth term as consul, he retook Lucania and Bruttium. He opposed the African expedition of Scipio Africanus Major in 205 BC, and died sometime not long thereafter.

Quintus Fulvius Flaccus was one of the three candidates for the position of Pontifex Maximus c. 212 BC, when he and another senior candidate Titus Manlius Torquatus, both former censors, were pipped at the post by a younger man, Publius Licinius Crassus who was not yet a curule aedile and thus probably aged in his middle thirties. Nevertheless, Flaccus made the new Pontifex his own Master of the Horse some years later.

Flaccus was known for his severity towards the disloyal citizens of Capua, of whom he had the senior men executed and the rest of the citizenry condemned to slavery for their disloyalty to Rome. According to Livy, the Capuans complained of his behavior to the Roman Senate which however ruled that Flaccus was within his rights.