In 97, Flaccus was censor with the Marcus Antonius who was consul in 99 BC. The duties of the censors included revising the census, which not only registered citizens, but determined social rank (ordo). Although no figures have survived from this census, Italians were registered as citizens in great numbers, presumably to strengthen the political power of those likely to support the Marian faction.E. Badian, "Caepio and Norbanus," Historia 1957, as reprinted in Studies in Greek and Roman History (New York 1964), p. 48. Flaccus and Antonius expelled Marcus Duronius from the senate because as tribune he had abrogated a sumptuary law passed by Publius Licinius Crassus.Fasti Capitolini, Degrassi 54f., 128, 478f.; Valerius Maximus 2.9.5. They also reappointed Marcus Aemilius Scaurus as princeps senatus.Asconius, note to In Scaurum 18 and 22c. Flaccus himself was recognized as princeps perhaps as early as 92–91 BC,Robin Seager, "Sulla," in The Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 2nd ed., vol. 9, p. 181 online. but certainly in the census of 86. Theodor Mommsen erroneously thought that Sulla had abolished the position and that Flaccus was the last princeps.Francis X. Ryan, Rank and Participation in the Roman Senate (Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998), p. 191 online and p. 194.
