Gnaeus Flavius

Gnaeus Flavius, active around 304 BC, was the son of a freedman who rose to the office of aedile in the Roman Republic. He served as secretary (scriba) to the consul Appius Claudius, a civil-service post that gave him a thorough knowledge of Roman law, which had traditionally been a prerogative of the patrician elite. He became the first person to publish an account of Roman legal procedures, the actions in law or legis actiones, breaking the patrician monopoly on legal knowledge that the Plebeians had been fighting since their 451 BC push for the Law of the Twelve Tables. His high profile from this act helped him win election as aedile for 304 BC, one of the two magistrates responsible for the upkeep of public buildings, the grain supply and the regulation of festivals, despite the fact that sons of freedmen were regarded merely as libertini; his election shocked the traditional governing elite into enacting new voter-registration reforms meant to curtail the growing political power of freedmen in Rome. As aedile he also displayed a calendar in the Forum marking the dies fasti, the days on which legal business was permitted.