Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/144

Rh 130 FABATUS. FABA'TUS, CALPU'RNIUS, a Roman Icnight, accused by suborned informers in A. d. 64, of being privy to the crimes of adultery and magi- cal arts which were alleged against Lepida, the wife of C. Cassius. By an appeal to Nero, judg- ment against Fabatus was deferred, and he eventu- ally eluded the accusation. (Tac. Ann. xvi. 8.) Fabatus was grandfather to Calpurnia, wife of the younger Pliny. (Plin. Ep. viii. 10.) He possessed a country house, Villa Camilliana, in Campania. (Td. vi. 30.) He long survived his son, Pliny's father-in-law, in memory of whom he erected a portico at Comum, in Cisalpine Gaul. (v. 12.) Ac- cording to an inscription (Gruter, Inscript. p. 382), Fabatus died at Comum. The following letters are addressed by Pliny to Fabatus, his prosocer (iv. 1, V. 12, vi. 12, 30, vii. 11, 16, 23, 32, viii. 10). [W. B. D.] FABA'TUS,L. RO'SCIUS, was one of Caesar's lieutenants in the Gallic war, and commanded the thirteenth legion on the Lower Rhine, in the winter of b. c. 54. It was during this winter that Ambiorix [Ambiorix] induced the Eburones and Nervii to attack in detail the quarters of the Roman legions, but in the operations consequent on their revolt Fabatus seems to have taken no part, since the district in which he was stationed remained quiet. (Caes. B. G. v. 24.) He apprised Caesar, however, of hostile movements in Armorica in the same winter. {Ibid. 53.) Fabatus was one of the praetors in B. c. 49, and was sent by Pompey from Rome to Caesar at Ariminum, with proposals of accommodation, both public and private. He was charged by Caesar with counter-proposals, which he delivered to Pompey and the consuls at Capua. (Cic. ad Att. viii. 12 ; Caes. B. C. i. 8, 10 ; Dion Cass. xli. 5.) Fabatus was des- patched on a second mission to Caesar by those members of the Pompeian party who were anxious for peace. (Dion Cass. I. c.) As Cicero mentions his meeting with L. Caesar at Minturnae on his return from Ariminum, and as L. Caesar was the companion of Fabatus, at least on their first jour- ney to and from C. Caesar, Fabatus, though not expressly named by him, probably met Cicero at Minturnae also, and communicated Caesar's offers, January 22. B. c. 49. (Cic. ad Att. vii. 13.) According to Cicero {ad Att. vii. 14), Fabatus and L. Caesar, on their return from Ariminum, delivered Caesar's offer to Pompey, not at Capua, but at Teanum. Fabatus was killed April 14th or 15th, B. c. 43, in the first of the battles in the neighbourhood of Mutina, between M. Antony and the legions of the senate. (Cic. ad Fam. x. 33.) [W. B. D.] Whether the annexed coin, which bears the name of L. Roscius Fabatus, belongs to the Fabatus above mentioned, is doubtful. It represents on the obverse the head of Juno Sospita, and the re- FABIA. verse refers to the worship of that goddess at I>a- nuvium. (Eckhel, vol. v. p. 292, &c.) FABE'RIUS. 1. Seems to have been a debtor of M. Cicero's, since in several of his letters to Atticus {ad Att. xii. 21, 25, 51, xiii. 8), Cicero speaks of him as a person from whom a certain sura was due, and should be demanded, in case of the purchase of some gardens in Rome {Horti Drusi- ani, Lamiani, &c.), which Cicero wished to buy. He was however, after a time, disposed to be lenient with Faberius {ad Att. xv. 13). If by Meto (in Epist. ad Att. xii. 51) Caesar be meant, in allusion to his reformation of the calendar (Suet. Caes. 40), the interest on the money owed by Fa- berius to Cicero may have been affected by the extension of the current year b. c. 46. Cicero seems to have been cautious of giving offence to Faberius ; and if he were the same person with Caesar's private secretary, mentioned below, and the transaction between them, as has been sup- posed, referred to property sold or confiscated during the civil wars, Cicero's reluctance to enforce payment may in B. c. 45 have been prudent as well as lenient. 2. One of the private secretaries of C. Julius Caesar. After Caesar's assassination, in b. c. 44, Antony attached to himself Faberius, by whose aid he inserted whatever he chose into the late dic- tator's papers. Since a decree of the senate had previously declared all Caesar's acts, and his will, valid and binding on the state, Antony, by em- ploying one of Caesar's own secretaries,, could in- sert, without danger of detection, whatever he wished into the papers (uTro^ui'Tj/iaTa), since the au- tograph of Faberius made it difficult to distinguish the genuine from the spurious memoranda. (Ap- pian, B. C iii. 5.) Dion Cassius (xliv. 3) says that Antony secured the services of Caesar's secre- taries, but he does not name Faberius. [W.B.D.] FA'BI A, the name of two daughters of the patri- cian M. Fabius Ambustus. The elder was married to Ser. Sulpicius, a patrician, and one of the mili- tary tribunes of the year B. c. 376, and the younger to the plebeian C. Licinius Stolo, who is said to have been urged on to his legislation by the vanity of his wife. Once, so the story runs, while the younger Fabia was staying with her sister, a lictor knocked at the door to announce the return of Ser. Sulpicius from the forum. This noise frightened the younger Fabia, who was unaccustomed to such things, and her elder sister ridiculed her for her ignorance. This, as well as the other honours which were paid to Servilius, deeply wounded the vanity of the younger Fabia, and her jealousy and envy made her unhappy. Her father perceived that she was suffering from something, and con- trived to elicit the cause of her grief. He then consoled her by telling her that shortly she should see the same honom-s and distinctions conferred upon her own husband, and thereupon he consulted with C. Licinius Stolo about the steps to be taken for this purpose ; and L. Sextius being let into the secret, a plot was formed of which the legislation of C. Licinius and L. Sextius was the result. (Liv. vi. 34 ; Zonar. vii. 24 ; Aur. Vict, de Vir. Illustr. 20) The improbability and inconsistency of this story has long since been exploded, for how could the younger Fabia have been ignorant of or startled by the distinctions enjoyed by her sister's husband, as her own father had been invested with the same office in B, c. 381 ? The stoi-v must therefore be