Fabius
(1) M. Ambustus, consul in B.C. 360, and again several times after. He fought against the Hernici and the Tarquinians, and left several sons.
(2) Q. Maximus Rullinus, son of the preceding, attacked and defeated the Samnites, B.C. 324, in the absence and against the orders of his commanding officer, the Dictator Papirius, who would have brought him to punishment for disobedience, but was prevented by the intercession of the soldiers and the people. This Fabius was five times consul, and dictator twice. He triumphed over the Samnites, Marsi, Gauls, and Etrurians. His son, Q. Fabius Gurges, was thrice consul, and was grandfather of Q. Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, one of the most celebrated generals of Rome.
(3) Q. Maxmus Verrucsus, the celebrated opponent of Hannibal. He is said to have been called Verrucosus from a wart on his lip, verruca being the Latin name for a wart. In his first consulship he triumphed over the Ligurians. After the victory of Hannibal at Lake Trasimenus (B.C. 217), he was named prodictator by the unanimous voice of the people, and was intrusted with the preservation of the Republic. The system which he adopted to check the advance of Hannibal is well known. By a succession of skilful movements, marches, and countermarches, always choosing good defensive positions, he harassed his antagonist, who could never draw him into places favourable for his attack, while Fabius watched every opportunity of availing himself of any error or neglect on the part of the Carthaginians. This mode of warfare, which was new to the Romans, acquired for Fabius the name of Cuncttor or delayer, and was censured by the young, the rash, and the ignorant; but it was probably the means of saving Rome from ruin. Minucius, who shared with Fabius the command of the army, having imprudently engaged Hannibal, was saved from total destruction by the timely assistance of the dictator. In the following year, however, B.C. 216, Fabius being recalled to Rome, the command of the army was intrusted to the consul Terentius Varro, who rushed imprudently to battle, and the defeat at Cannae made manifest the wisdom of the dictator's previous caution. Fabius was chosen consul the next year, and was again employed in keeping Hannibal in check. In B.C. 210, being consul for the fifth time, he retook Tarentum by stratagem, after which he narrowly escaped being caught himself in a snare by Hannibal near Metapontum (Livy, xxvii. 15 foll.). When, some years after, the question was discussed in the Senate, of sending Scipio with an army into Africa, Fabius opposed it, saying that Italy ought first to be rid of Hannibal. Fabius died some time after at a very advanced age.
(4) His son, called likewise Quintus Fabius Maxmus, who had also been consul, died before him.
(5) His grandson Quintus Fabius Maxmus Servilinus, being proconsul, fought against Viriathus in Spain, and concluded with him an honourable peace (Livy , Epit.54). He was afterwards consul repeatedly, and also censor. He wrote annals, which are quoted by Macrobius ( Sat.i. 16).
(6) His brother by adoption, Quintus Fabius Maxmus Aemilinus, the son of Aemilius Paulus (Livy , xlv. 41), was consul B.C. 144, and was the father of Fabius, called
(7) Allobrogcus, who subdued not [p. 656]
only the Allobroges, but also the people of southern Gaul, which he reduced to a Roman province, called from that time Provincia. Quintus Fabius Maxmus, a grandson of Fabius Maximus Servilianus, served in Spain under Iulius Caesar, and was made consul B.C. 44. Two of his sons or nephews were consuls in succession under Augustus. There was also a Fabius consul under Tiberius. Panvinius and others have reckoned that during a period of about five centuries, from the time of the first Fabius who is mentioned as consul to the reign of Tiberius, forty-eight consulships, seven dictatorships, eight censorships, seven augurships, besides the offices of master of the horse and military tribune with consular power, were filled by individuals of the Fabian house. It could also boast of thirteen triumphs and two ovations.
(4) Pictor, born about B.C. 254, the first Roman who wrote an historical account of his country in Greek. This historian, called by Livy scriptorum antiquissimus, appears to have been ill qualified for the labour he had undertaken, either in point of judgment, fidelity, or research; and to his carelessness, more than even to the loss of monuments, may be attributed much of the uncertainty which to this day hangs over the early ages of Roman history. Fabius lived in the time of the Second Punic War. His family received its cognomen from Gaius Fabius, who, having resided in Etruria and there acquired some knowledge of the fine arts, painted with figures the temple of Salus, in the year B.C. 303. The historian was grandson of the painter. He served in the Second Punic War, and was present at the battle of Trasimenus. After the defeat at Cannae he was sent by the Senate to inquire from the oracle at Delphi what would be the issue of the war, and to learn by what supplications the wrath of the gods might be appeased. His annals commenced with the age of Aeneas, and brought down the relation of Roman affairs to the author's own timethat is, to the end of the Second Punic War. We are informed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus that, for the great proportion of the events which preceded his own age, Fabius Pictor had no better authority than tradition. He probably thought that if he had confined himself to what was certain in those early times, his history would have become dry, insipid, and incomplete. This may have induced him to adopt the myths which the Greek historians had invented concerning the origin of Rome, and to insert whatever he found in family traditions, however contradictory or uncertain. Dionysius has also given many examples of Pictor's improbable narratives, his inconsistencies, his negligence in investigating the truth of what he relates as facts, and his inaccuracy in chronology. In particular, as we are told by Plutarch in his life of Romulus, Fabius followed an obscure Greek author, Diocles, in his account of the foundation of Rome, and from this source have flowed all the stories concerning Mars, the Vestal, the Wolf, Romulus and Remus, etc. Polybius, who flourished shortly after those times, and was at pains to inform himself accurately concerning all the events of the Second Punic War, apologizes on one occasion for quoting Fabius as an authority. Livy quotes him eight times. The fragments are given by H. Peter in his Hist. Relliquiae, i. 5, 109. See also Schwegler, Rmische Geschichte, i. 412; Mommsen, Rmische Forschungen, ii. 279; H. Nissen in the Rheinisches Museum, xxii. 565; Harless, De Fabiis et Aufidiis Rerum Rom. Scriptoribus (Bonn, 1853); C. Peter, Zur Kritik d. Quellen d. lt. rm. Geschichte (Halle, 1879); Heydenreich, Fabius Pictor und Livius (Freiburg, 1878); and the article Livius.