Lucius Valerius Flaccus (princeps senatus 86 BC)

Lucius Valerius Flaccus (d. circa 73–69 BC) was a consul of the Roman Republic in 100 BC and princeps senatus (leader of the senate) during the civil wars of the 80s. He is noted for his peace initiatives, which failed, and for sponsoring the Lex Valeria that created the dictatorship of Sulla.

The earliest official capacity recorded for Lucius Flaccus is monetalis ("moneyer"), a common preliminary to the political career track for young men of senatorial rank. In 108 or 107 BC, Flaccus issued coinage depicting Victory and Mars. Flaccus was elected praetor sometime before 103 BC. In 100, he was the colleague of Gaius Marius for his sixth consulship. He was so little at variance with Marius that his contemporary Rutilius Rufus, in his non-extant history, disparaged him as "more a servant than a colleague."

In 97, Flaccus was censor with the Marcus Antonius who was consul in 99 BC. The duties of the censors included revising the census, which not only registered citizens, but determined social rank (ordo). Although no figures have survived from this census, Italians were registered as citizens in great numbers, presumably to strengthen the political power of those likely to support the Marian faction. Flaccus and Antonius expelled Marcus Duronius from the senate because as tribune he had abrogated the Lex Licinia, a sumptuary law passed by P. Licinius Crassus. They also reappointed M. Aemilius Scaurus as princeps senatus. Flaccus himself was recognized as princeps perhaps as early as 92–91 BC, but certainly in the census of 86. Theodor Mommsen erroneously thought that Sulla had abolished the position and that Flaccus was the last princeps.

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