Virius Nicomachus Flavianus

Virius Nicomachus Flavianus (334–394) was a grammarian, a historian and a politician of the Roman Empire.

A pagan and close friend of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, he was Praetorian prefect of Italy in 390–392 and, under usurper Eugenius (392–394), again praetorian prefect (393–394) and consul (394, recognized only within Eugenius' territory). After the death of Eugenius in the battle of the Frigidus, Flavianus committed suicide.

Nicomachus Flavianus was born in 334, and belonged to the Nicomachi, an influential family of senatorial rank. His father was Volusius Venustus, and from his wife, a pagan herself, he had a son also called Nicomachus Flavianus and maybe another son called Venustus; he was also grandfather of Appius Nicomachus Dexter and of Galla.

His career can be reconstructed from two inscriptions: one (CIL, ) put up by his granddaughter's husband Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus and probably inscribed in 394, the other (CIL, ) coming from the basis of a statue erected in 431 in Trajan's Forum by his nephew Appius Nicomachus Dexter, to celebrate his grandfather's memory after its restoration by the ruling emperors. Flavianus' cursus honorum included the following offices:

During his office as vicarius Africae he received a law against Donatism; however it seems he somehow sided with the Donatists, if in 405 Augustine of Hippo misbelieved him a Donatist. In this office he, together with Decimius Hilarianus Hesperius, was in charge of the investigations around a scandal involving the city of Leptis Magna, but his conclusions, included into a report, had the citizens cleared of the charges and not guilty; afterwards the citizens of Leptis Magna erected him a statue.

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