Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/872

Rh F A B F A B following names belonged, however, to the same family at different epochs, Q. Fabius Vibulanus, who was consul in 412 B.C., having been the first to assume the cognomen of Ambustus; while Rullianus, according to some accounts, changed the latter into Maxiinus, in 312 B.C. his full name thus being Q. Fabius Maxiinus Rullianus. Of the Vibulani, first noticed about the year 486 B.C., the most dis tinguished were the three brothers, Quintus, Kaeso, and Marcus, one or other of whom filled one of the two consul ships from that date to 479. In that year the Fabii to the number, it is said, of 306 patricians, exclusive of their numerous dependents emigrated from Rome under the leadership of Kaeso, who had just been consul for the third time, and settled on the banks of the Cremera, a few miles above Rome. Some accounts have attributed that secession to the opposition which the Fabian support of the plebs had aroused among the old patrician families. For two years the exiles or seceders continued to be the city s chief defence against the Veientes, until at last they were sur prised by the latter, and cut off to a man. The only sur vivor of the gens was the son of Marcus, who had been left behind at Rome, and who thus became the ancestor of the succeeding Fabii. He was consul in 467 B.C., and a member of the second decemvirate in 450. When the Gauls cap tured Rome in 390 the pontifex maximus was a Fabius Ambustus. The most famous of this line i.e., supposing Rullianus to have been the first Maximus was the father of Rullianus. He was thrice consul, and was dictator in 351 B.C. His son, Rullianus, called by Arnold the &quot; Talbot of the 5th century of Rome,&quot; was master of the horse in 365 B.C. to Papirius Cursor, by whom he was degraded for having fought and beaten the Sanitates contrary to orders. In 296, when consul for the sixth time, he defeated, at the great battle of Sentinum, the combined forces of the Etrurians, Umbrians, Samnites, and Gauls. But the greatest Roman who bore the name of Fabius one of the most illustrious Romans of the republic was Q. Fabius Maxi mus Verrucosus (see below). Of the later Fabii, Q. Fabius Maximus ^Emilianus and Q. Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus were among the most distinguished. The former, a Fabius only by adoption, served in the last Macedonian war, 168 B.C., and was consul in Spain 145 B.C., when he conquered Viriathus. He was the pupil and the patron of the historian Polybius. The Fabius named Allobrogicus (after his victory over the Allobroges and their ally Bituitus, king of the Arverni) was consul in 121 B.C. The Fabian name is occasionally met with as late as the 2d century A.D. Perhaps the most complete work on this family is the Disputatio de Gcnte Fabia, by G. N. Du Rieu, Leyden, 1856, where may also be found a list of previous writers on the same subject. FABIUS MAXIMUS VERRUCOSUS, QUINTUS, also named Cunctator and Ovicida, was one of the most dis tinguished Romans of the republic, the incarnation of all that a Roman meant by patriotism. It appears that he served his first consulship in Liguria, 233 B.C., that he was censor in 230, and consul for the second time in 228. In 218 he was sent to Carthage to inquire whether that state approved of Hannibal s conduct in attacking Saguntum. The answer proved unsatisfactory; and Fabius, assuming the haughty dignity of a Roman senator, and folding up his cloak so as to form a cavity, thus addressed the nobles of Carthage : &quot; Hie vobis bellum et pacem portamus ; utrum placet sumite.&quot; Being answered that he might give which he pleased, he indignantly exclaimed, &quot; Then I give you war;&quot; and the deputies returned to Rome to state the result of their mission. The disastrous campaign on the Trebia, and the defeat on the banks of the Thrasymene Lake, warned the Romans that their successful resistance to Hannibal, and even their existence, depended on the wisdom of the general to whom they entrusted their troops. So Fabius was named dictator in 271, and began his tactics of &quot;masterly inactivity.&quot; Manoeuvring among the hills, where Hannibal s horse w r ere useless, he cut off his supplies, harassed him incessantly, did everything except fight. His steady adherence to this plan, in spite of all the mis conceptions which his caution had aroused at Rome, evinced the moral strength of the man. He was suspected of an ambition for the prolongation of his command. Hannibal was one of the few men in Italy who understood him. Even Minucius, the master of the horse, ridiculed the pro ceedings of Fabius ; and he seized the opportunity of the latter s absence at Rome to attack the enemy, and win a victory. This tended only more strongly to confirm the opponents of Fabius in their opinion, and the command was divided between Miuucius and Fabius. The result was exactly such as might have been anticipated. Minucius engaged in battle with Hannibal, and his army was on the verge of ruin when the opportune arrival of Fabius changed the aspect of affairs. Miuucius seems to have had the moral courage to confess his folly, and cheerfully to submit to the orders of Fabius. Fabius having retired at the end of the legal time of six months, the conduct of the war was entrusted to ^Emilius, who followed the ex-dictator s plan, and Varro, who did not. &quot; You must beware of Varro, as well as of Hannibal,&quot; said Fabius; and the warning was followed by the disaster of Cannae. Fabius might have accused him ; but it is narrated that the mag nanimous Roman thanked his rival &quot;because he had not despaired of the republic.&quot; After the defeat at Cannaj (216 B.C.) he was appointed to the command of the armies with Marcellus, &quot; the sword,&quot; as Fabius himself was &quot; the shield,&quot; of the republic. He laid siege to the important city of Capua; and when Hannibal marched towards Rome, threatening the city itself, Fabius remained firmly at his post. In 214 B.C. when consul for the fourth time, he captured Casilinum in Samnium. In his fifth consul ship, 209, he took the city of Tarentum; and w r hen it was proposed, towards the conclusion of the war, that Scipio should pass into Africa, Fabius was decidedly op posed to the scheme. He did not live to witness the final success of Scipio, having died at an advanced age, 203 B.C. In the previously named year he became prin- ceps senatus, a dignity almost hereditary in the family of the Fabii Maximi. FABIUS PICTOR, QUINTUS, the father of Roman history, was the grandson of the Fabius who, suruamed Pictor for his artistic skill, bequeathed that name to a family of the Fabian gens. In the interval between the first and second Punic wars we find him taking an active part in the subjugation of the Gauls in the north of Italy (225 B.C.) ; and after the battle of Cannae (216), he was employed by the Romans to proceed to Delphi in order to consult the oracle of Apollo. The rude muse of Naevius had already celebrated in verse the glory acquired by the Roman arms in the first Punic war, and Ennius had clothed the annals of his adopted country in the language of poetry. But till the time of Fabius Pictor, no one had appeared to chronicle in simple prose the res gestce of Rome and the Romans. The historian s materials consisted of the Annales Maximi, Com- mentarii Consulares, and similar records (see FASTI) of names, feasts, battles, prodigies, and the like, together with such chronicles as every great Roman family preserved of its own deeds ; as also what furnished the most valu able part of his work his own experiences in the second Punic war. His Annals, as they were called, existed in the time of Pliny the Elder, but are now known only from a few fragments and allusions. According to Livy, they contained a description of the battle of Thrasymene, and Niebuhr even conjectures that Dion Cassius derived his knowledge of Roman constitutional history from Pictor -s