Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/1006

Rh P92 MAXIMUS. others ascribed to him alone ; and a moderation in seeking and refusing honours imputed to him equally foreign to his age, his nation, and character. Where so much has been studiously falsified (Liv. viii. 40), probably in the first instance by chroni- clers of the Fabian house — a house unusually rich in annalists — and where our only guides, the Fasti, Livy, and Diodorus, are not only irrecon- cileable Avith one another, but often inconsistent with themselves, a bare outline of his military and political life is alone desirable. In his first consu- late, B.C. 322, Fabius was stationed in Apulia, where he defeated the Samnites, and triumphed '"''de Samnitibus et Ap?ileis. (Liv. viii. 38, 40 ; comp. Zonar. vii. 26 ; Aurel. Vict. Vir. III. 32 ; Appian, Samn. Fr. 4.) In tlie following year, after the disaster at the Caudine Forks, he was interrex (Liv. ix. 17), and in 315 dictator, and was com- pletely defeated by the Samnites at Lautulae, a narrow pass between the sea and the mountains east of Terracina, (Diod. xix. 72 ; Liv. ix. 22, 23.) To this or the next year belongs probably an anecdote preserved by Valerius Maximus (viii. L § 9). A. Atilius Calatinus [Atii.ius Cala- TiNUS, No. 3], son-in-law of Fabius, was accused of betraying Sora to the enemy. His condemna- tion was arrested by Fabius declaring that had he believed Calatinus guilty, he would have exercised his paternal power, and taken his daughter from him. In B. c. 310 Fabius was consul for the second time. (Liv. ix. 33 ; Diod. xx. 27 ; Fasti.) Of this, as of his former consulate, the accounts are conflicting. Unable to relieve Sutrium, which the Etruscans were besieging, Fabius struck through the Ciminian wood till he reached the western frontier of Umbria. He there formed an alliance with the people of Camerinum or Camerta, and by his ravages in northern Etruria effected a diversion favourable to Rome, and compelled Arretium, Cor- tona, and Perusia, to conclude a truce for thirty years with the republic. His victories at Perusia, the Lake Vadimon, and Sutrium, may be placed in the same catalogue with the apocryphal perils of the Ciminian forest. The senate meanwhile, alarmed at the withdrawal of the anny from Sutrium, sent to prohibit Fabius marching into Etruria. He met the deputation on his return when his success had justified his disobedience. The war south of the Tiber, however, required a dictator, and Fabius was directed to appoint his old enemy, Papirius Cursor. He heard the mandate of the senate in moody silence, obeyed it in the solitude of midnight, and when, next morning, the envoys thanked him for preferring the public good to his private enmity, he dismissed them without reply. A triumph de Etrusceis recompensed this campaign. (Liv. ix. 33, 35, 36. 37, 38, 40 ; Dion Cass. Fr. 35 ; Fasti.) According to the Fasti a year intervened between the second and third con- sulates of Fabius ; but Livy (ix. 41 '• and Diodorus (xx. 37) make them immediately sa;ceed one an- other. Fabius, as consul in b. c. 308, had Sam- nium for his province. He quelled a revolt of the Marsians, the Pelignians, and Hernicans ; recovered Nuceria Alfaterna in Campania, which seven years before had joined the Samnite league ; and was able, before the expiration of his office, to leave his province and hasten into Umbria. He is said to have defeated the Umbrians at Mevania, but no triumph followed either this Samnite or Umbrian campaign. His command in Samnium, with the MAXIMUS. title of proconsul, was continued during B. c. 307, and he defeated the Samnites near Allifae. This campaign also is liable to suspicion, since Fabius obtained no triumph. (Liv. ix. 42 ; Diod. xx. 44.) In B. c. 304 Fabius was censor. Upon Livy's brief and uninstructive words (ix. 46) a pile of hypothesis has been raised by modern and re- cent scholars. We can only refer to Niebuhr {Hist, of Rome, vol. iii. pp. 320 — 350), Zumpt {Die Centurien, Berlin, 1836), Huschke {Siaaisver/ass. Serv. Tull. Breslau, 1838), and Walther (6'e«- chicht. Rom. Redd, vol. i. p. 1 36). Fabius seems to have cancelled the changes introduced by Appius the Blind in his censorship, B. c. 312 [App. Clau- dius, No. 10], by confining the libertini to the four city tribes : he also probably increased the political importance of the equites. (Liv. ix. 46 ; Val. Max. ii. 2. § 9 ; Aurel. Vict. Vir. III. 32 ; Plin. H. N. XV. 4; comp. Dionys. vi. 13, 15.) Fabius does not appear again till B.C. 297, when he was consul for the fifth time, according to Livy (x. 13), against his own wishes ; but the annalist of the Fabian house whom Livy copied probably veiled or suppressed in this year a strong opposition to his re-election by the Appian part}'. (Liv. x. 15.) Samnium was again his province, but the result of his campaign is doubtful. In the following year Fabius was consul for the sixth time, and com- manded at the great battle of Sentinum, when the combined armies of the Samnites, Gauls, Etruscans, and Umbrians, attacked the Romans and their allies. At the beginning of the year a dispute with P. Decius Mus, who had been thrice before Fabius' colleague in the consulsh4p, and once in the censorship, and the withdrawal of Appius Claudius from the seat of war, and his appointment to the city praetorship, are probably tokens of strong party-struggles at Rome. (Liv. x. 21, 22, 24.) For his victory at Sentinum Fabius triumphed on the 4th of September in the same j-ear. (Fast.; Liv. ib. 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30.) For the remainder of the year he was employed in Etruria. In 292 he acted as legatus to his son [Maximus Fabius, No. 2], and rode beside his triumphal chariot, de- lighting in the honours of his son, whom he had rescued from disgrace and degradation and crowned with victory. (Liv. Epit. xi. ; Dion Cass. Fr. Peiresc. xxxvi. ; Oros. iii. 22 ; Plut. Fab. Max. 24 ; Val. Max. ii. 2. § 4, v. 7. § 1 ; Zonar. viii. 1.) Fabius succeeded his father, Ambustus, in the honourable post of Princeps Senat&s. ( Plin. H. N. vii. 41.) On his death, which happened soon after, the people subscribed largely for the expences of his funeral ; but as the Fabian house was wealth}', his son Fabius Gurges employed the money in giving a public entertainment {epulum), and in a distribution of provisions {visceratio) to the citizens of Rome. (Aurel. Vict. Vir. III. 32.) The cause of his obtaining the cognomen Maximus is uncertain. Livy (ix. 46) says tliat his political services in the censorship of b. c. 304 were the cause. But he makes a doubt (xxx. 26) whether the cognomen were not originally conferred on his great grand- son, Q. Fabius, the dictator in the second Punic war [No. 4] ; and Polybius (iii. 87) says that the latter Fabius was the first of the Fabian house who was denominated Maximus. 2. Q. Fabius, Q. f. M. n. Maximus, son of the preceding, acquired the agnomen of Gurgks, or the Glutton, from the dissoluteness of his youth. His mature manhood atoned for his cariy irrega-