FLAMINIUS, C., a Roman senator, one of the most distinguished men of his family, the chief transactions of whose life are comprehended between his tribuneship, 232, and death, 217, B. C. He was one of the most powerful supporters of the liberal party in Rome, and was amongst the first to suggest the idea of dividing the land taken from the Galli Senones, in Picenum, amongst the lower orders; a suggestion which proved ever afterwards a source of irritation between the aristocracy and plebeians. This proposal made him, of course, the favourite of the people, and detested by the senate, who lost no opportunity of mortifying and thwarting the plans of Flaminius as far as they could do so with safety to themselves. By his influence with the people he was raised to the consulship (223 B. C.), and proceeded with his colleague Furius to conduct the war against the Galli Insubres, a powerful tribe in Cisalpine Gaul, to the north of the Po, whose capital was Milan. They had scarcely arrived, when the senate, who had it always in their power to punish a magistrate whose conduct they disapproved, by pretended flaws in the election, or by sacrifices not duly performed, sent an order for their immediate return. The friends of Flaminius had advertised him of the contents of the dispatch, and he, resolving not to be baffled in his object, deposited it quietly in his portfolio, under pretence that he was too much occupied with his military manoeuvres to have time to attend to the civil affairs of Rome. But when he had struck a decisive blow against the enemy, and thus justified the support given by his friends at Rome, he opened the dispatch, and found that it contained his recall. He felt himself, however, too powerful in the affections of the people to care for the spleen of the senate, and boldly set it at defiance, by remaining in the north of Italy till he had made a satisfactory arrangement of this part of the country. On his return he was degraded by the senate, but the people indemnified their favourite by voting him a triumph.
Flaminius continued to support every measure calculated to increase the power of the people, or to diminish that of their opponents. He procured the enactment of a law, that no senator should possess a ship of larger burden than was sufficient to contain three hundred amphoræ, equal to about 900 English bushels. This increased still more his influence with the people, and he was again elected consul (217 B. C.), though absent at Ariminum, to which place he had retired to await the result of the election. He was fearful that the senate would manage to retain him in the city, by falsifying the auspices or delaying the celebration of the Feria Latina. They attempted to recall him, but he disregarded their commands, and took his station at Arretium, now Arezzo, to wait the arrival of Hannibal. But that artful general drew the army of Flaminius into the ambuscade he had laid on the Thrasymene Lake, and the result was the complete defeat of the army and death of Flaminius. (Polyb. ii. 21, 32, 33; Cic. Acad. iv. 5; Liv. xxi. xxii.)