in silence the reason of a flamen's being compelled to be inaugurated,
had he not become a good, from having been a bad character. In
consequence of having spent his youth in idleness and debauchery,
vices for which he had incurred the displeasure of his own brother,
Lucius Flaccus, and the rest of his kinsmen, Caius Flaccus was chosen
flamen by Publius Licinius, chief pontiff. As soon as his mind became
occupied with the care of the sacred rites and ceremonies, he soon so
completely divested himself of his former habits, that no one among
all the youth was more esteemed, or enjoyed in a greater degree the
approbation of the chief of the patricians, whether relations or
aliens. Being raised by this generally good character to a proper
confidence in himself, he claimed to be admitted into the senate; a
thing intermitted for many years, on account of the worthlessness of
former flamens. On entering the senate, Lucius Licinius, the praetor,
led him out; on which the flamen appealed to the tribunes of the
people. He demanded back the ancient privilege of his priesthood,
which was given, together with the purple-bordered robe, and the
curule chair, to the office of flamen. The praetor wished the question
to rest not on the precedents contained in the annals, which were
obsolete from their antiquity, but on the usual practice in all the
cases of most recent date; urging, that no flamen of Jupiter, in
the memory of their fathers or their grandfathers, had taken up that
privilege. The tribunes giving it as their opinion, that justice
required, that as the obliteration of the privilege was occasioned by
the negligence of the flamens, the consequences ought to fall upon the
flamens themselves, and not upon the office, led the flamen into the
senate, with the general approbation of the fathers, and without any
opposition, even from the praetor himself; while all were of opinion
that the flamen had obtained his object more from the purity of his
life, than any right appertaining to the priesthood. The consuls,