Virius Nicomachus Flavianus

[1] His career can be reconstructed from two inscriptions: one (CIL, VI, 1782) put up by his granddaughter's husband Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus and probably inscribed in 394, the other (CIL, VI, 1783) 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.

[9] In 392 Flavianus had been praetorian prefect of Illyricum and Africa for two years, when the emperor of the western part of the Roman Empire, Valentinian II, died, either killed or committing suicide (15 May); his general Arbogast, with whom he had had a long conflict, was suspected of being involved in his death.

Flavianus took the opportunity and renewed the public ceremonies of the Roman religion, without the opposition of Eugenius, who was, for this reason, scolded by Ambrose, bishop of Milan.

Theodosian propaganda first and Christian sources later presented the fight between Theodosius and Eugenius as a struggle of Christian faith against a last-standing Paganism: for this reason the religious acts of Flavianus have been interpreted as a pagan revival supported, or at least allowed, by Eugenius; a typical example is the episode of the Vita Ambrosii by Paulinus the Deacon,[10] in which Flavianus and Arbogast, leaving Milan to clash into Theodosius' army, promise to destroy the city basilica and to enlist the Christian clergy into the army after their victorious return.

The bond between the two families was celebrated, either in occasion of one of the two weddings or at the time of a joint endorsement of religious offices, with the issue of a diptych, the valves of which are entitled Nicomachorum and Symmachorum.

[15] In the inscription on the base of the statue he dedicated to his father-in-law, Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus calls Flavianus historicus disertissimus.

He is one of the main characters, together with other members of his pagan club, of Macrobius' Saturnalia, a work written in the 430s, where he is depicted as a man of huge erudition.