Lucius Valerius Flaccus (consul 195 BC)

Lucius Valerius Flaccus (d. 180 BC) was a consul of the Roman Republic in 195 BC and censor in 183 BC, serving both times with his great friend Cato the Elder, whom he brought to the notice of the Roman political elite.

Flaccus was a patrician and son of the Publius Valerius Flaccus who was consul in 227 BC. His brother was the flamen dialis Gaius Valerius Flaccus, who made a respectable political career as praetor, though not consul. Both men were apparently sons of the consul Publius Valerius Flaccus; the father had been elected consul for 227 BC with M. Atilius Regulus.

The patrician Flaccus became a friend, political patron, and ally of the young plebeian soldier Marcus Porcius Cato, later called Cato the Elder, during the earlier years of the Second Punic War. Flaccus is possibly the Valerius Flaccus who was a military tribune in 212 BC, serving under the consuls who captured Hanno's camp at Beneventum.

Flaccus was curule aedile in 201 BC. He was probably the L. Valerius Flaccus who was a legate under the praetor L. Furius Purpurio in Gaul in 200. As praetor in 199, he was assigned to the province of Sicily. Flaccus received Italy as his province when he was consul in 195 BC, and continued to wage war as proconsul the following year against the Gauls, with a victory over the Insubres at Mediolanum (Milan). In 191 Flaccus was a legate under M'. Acilius Glabrio in the war against the Aetolians and at the Battle of Thermopylae.

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