A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

1. Sp.LartiusFlavus, consul B. C. 506. Dionysius (5.36) says that nothing was recorded of this consulship, and Livy omits it altogether. Niebuhr (Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 53(6) considers the consulship of Lartius Flavus and his colleague T. Herminius Aquilinus to have been inserted to fill up the gap of a year. Lartius Flavus belongs to the heroic period of Roman history. His name is generally coupled with that of Herminius (Dionys. A. R. 5.22, 23, 24, 36; Liv. 2.10, 11), and in the original lays they were the two warriors who stood beside Horatius Cocles in his defence of the bridge. [COCLES.] Mr. Macaulay (Lays of Anc. Rome, " Horatius," st. 30) preserves this feature of the story, and adopts Niebuhr's reason for it (Hist. Rome, i. p. 542), that one represented the tribe of the Ramnes, and the other that of the Titienses. It is worth notice, however, that at the battle of the Lake Regillus, where all the heroes meet together for the last time, the name of Herminius appears, but not that of Lartius. (Dionys. A. R. 5.3, &c.; Liv. 2.19, &c.) Lartius Flavus was consul a second time in B. C. 490 (Dionys. A. R. 7.68) ; warden of the city (5.75, 8.64); one of the five envoys sent to the Volscian camp when Coriolanus besieged Rome (8.72); and interrex for holding the consular comitia B. C. 480 (8.90), in which year he counselled war with Veii (ib. 91).