[1] He is notable for his balanced stance during the Sullan civil wars, the longevity of his term as governor, and his efforts to extend citizenship to non-Romans.

[2] An inscription from Claros (in modern Turkey) indicates that following his praetorship and before 95 he held a promagisterial, or senior military, command in the Roman province of Asia.

[5] Flaccus may have been a candidate for the consulship of 94, losing to the novus homo ("new man") Gaius Coelius Caldus, who is said to have run against two nobiles and beaten one of them.

[8] In 96, while praetor urbanus, the senior magistrate of the city of Rome, Flaccus sponsored legislation to grant citizenship to Calliphana of Velia, a priestess of Ceres.

[9] Julius Caesar, in his account of the Gallic Wars, identifies the Helvian Celt Caburus as another recipient of citizenship from Flaccus, during his time as governor of Gallia Transalpina.

The historian Appian says the revolt was motivated by the exceptional cruelty and treachery of Didius, who had dealt with unrest and crime among the poor by promising them land to live on and then luring them into a trap.

Flaccus appears to have been successful in halting large-scale violence, perhaps because he capitalized on any outrage or ambivalence within the community at the deaths of their senators and executed those responsible.

[15] Flaccus remained in Hispania as governor at least until 87, as evidenced by the Tabula Contrebiensis, a bronze tablet on which are inscribed his civil laws pertaining to boundaries and water-rights arbitration.

The document is written in Latin[16] and based on Roman legal formulae, but the judges are the local senate of Contrebia Balaisca (near present-day Botorrita).

Scholars have been unable to determine the extent to which Flaccus's terms as governor in Hispania and Gaul were overlapping or sequential, as a continuous line of succession can rarely be traced for any province.

A dual governorship of both provinces has been disparaged as "unprecedented",[19] but no other promagistrate is documented for Hispania in this period, and since the senate only began assigning Transalpine Gaul as a regular provincia in the mid-90s, administrative arrangements were still evolving.

[26] Two years later, the case, still dragging on, helped launch the career of Cicero, who in 81 was a young advocate in his mid-twenties arguing on behalf of Quinctius: the speech survives as the extant pro Quinctio.

He appears to have been attempting to preserve legitimate authority while remaining neutral in the factional conflict, though the Valerii Flacci were generally popularist in their politics and had strong ties to Gaius Marius.

He was sent as governor to the Roman province of Asia, where he was murdered in 85 by the mutinous Gaius Flavius Fimbria, who then took command of the troops assigned to Lucius.

The Marian-Cinnan faction, now led by the son of Gaius Marius, set about securing Hispania, which Flaccus, given the vastness of his command, could only have been administering through legates, high ranking, semi-autonomous, military officers, such as the disreputable Marcus Fonteius.

[36] Quintus Sertorius, impeccably loyal to the anti-Sullan cause, was sent overland to the Iberian peninsula with a relatively small force in late 83 or early 82.

[38] The Marians may have wished to secure their interests in the west without requiring Flaccus to take sides in a direct confrontation: "The government could ill afford to alienate the man even further when he had shown no actual sign of disaffection.

"[39] Sertorius was a logical successor to govern Hispania because he had served there earlier, and to relieve Flaccus after such a prolonged term was reasonable rather than provocative.

[44] After Sulla emerged victorious, the senate authorized Flaccus to strike coinage to cover expenses for his final months in command.