the second decemvirate, and assisted in completing the famous legislative code of the twelve tables. But his military reputation passed under a cloud, when, in association with two of his decemviral colleagues, he led an army against the Sabines and was defeated at Eretum, 448 b.c. His character seems to have been also deteriorated in other respects, by his alliance with such a man as Appius Claudius; and when the tragical death of Virginia by her father's hand brought the power of the decemvirate to a violent close, Fabius was compelled to seek safety in exile. Two of his sons subsequently attained to consular dignity; and one of these, Humerius Fabius Vibulanus, was the father of the first Fabius Ambustus.
Marcus Fabius Ambustus, probably a grandson of the first who bore this surname, was consul 360 b.c., and commanded against the Hernici, a warlike Latin nation on the Appenines, near Lake Fucinus. Victory crowned his efforts; and a similar success attended him in his second consulship b.c. 356, when he took the field against the confederated Tarquinians and Fabiscans, although his troops were at first daunted by the ferocious appearance of their adversaries, who rushed to the battle in the guise of furies bearing snakes and torches. He was consul again in 354 b.c., interrex the following year, and the senate subsequently invested him with the dictatorship, in order to secure the election of patrician consuls.
Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus, son of the preceding, brought new honour to the name. Being master of the horse to Papirius Cursor, in the second war with the Samnites, he gained an important victory over them at Imbrinium, 325 b.c.; but as he had ventured to fight the battle in the dictator's absence, and contrary to his orders, this infraction of military law would have cost him his life, had not the triumph moved the citizens of all classes to second the troops in interceding for him. Three years later, he obtained his first consulship, and commanded in Apulia, which had formed alliance with Samnium. His success in that quarter, combined with the good fortune of the dictator Cossus in the Samnite territory, induced the enemy to enter into negotiations of peace. On the renewal of hostilities about a year afterwards, the scale turned, and the Romans suffered a disastrous defeat in the mountain passes near Candium, called the Candine Forks. They resumed the struggle, however, with unabated energy; and in 315 b.c., Fabius having been appointed dictator, met the Samnite army in the neighbourhood of Lantulæ, where, after sustaining a defeat, he was reinforced by his relative Caius Fabius, and, according to Livy, retrieved the misfortune. In 310 b.c., he was again consul, and at the call of the senate nominated to the dictatorship Papirius Cursor, who prosecuted the war in Samnium, and Fabius gained additional honour against the Etruscans. In his third consulship, a year or two later, and in his proconsulship which immediately followed, he was again employed against the Samnites, with whom the Marsians, Pelignians, Umbrians, and some of the Etruscan states, had now made common cause; he raised the siege of Sutrium, captured Nuceria and Alifæ, penetrated the Ciminian forest, crossed the Apeninnes, and by a series of successful operations, humbled the confederated enemies of Rome. After holding the consulship for the fourth time, and again commanding against the Samnites, he was censor with P. Decius, and in this office effected some important changes in the internal arrangements of the city. His fifth and sixth consulships, 297 and 295 b.c., brought him again into contact with the Samnites, now aided by the Gauls as well as by the Umbrians and Etruscans. The victories which he gained at Sentinum in Umbria, and near Perusia in the Etruscan territory, added the brightest leaves to the chaplet of his military fame. The gratitude of his countrymen had raised him at his father's death to the presidency of the senate, and at his own decease, a large sum was voted from the public treasury for his funeral, but declined by his son.
Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges, son of Fabius Rullianus, acquired his own unenviable surname, which signifies the Glutton, from the sensual excesses of his youth; but the stain was obliterated by his subsequent services. In his first consulship, 295 b.c., he commanded against the Pentrian Samnites, having his father for his lieutenant-general; and their united efforts gained a great battle, in which the famous Samnite leader, Pontius, fell into the hands of the Romans. After further service in the field, he became president of the senate, and was slain in a revolt among the Etruscans.
Quintus Fabius Maximus, surnamed Verrucosus, from a wart on his lip, and also Cunctator, from the cautious character of his military policy, was a grandson of Fabius Gurges, and became the most illustrious of the family. He had been censor, dictator, and twice consul, before he was called to the dictatorship a second time, 217 b.c. This was in the second Punic war, and immediately after the consul Flaminius had been defeated by Hannibal at the Lake Trasimenus. The loss of fifteen thousand men, besides the prisoners taken in that engagement, and its dispiriting influence on the Romans, excluded the thought of risking another pitched battle; and the talents of Fabius were peculiarly adapted for the patient and wary service of a defensive warfare. While the enemy passed southwards to waste Picenum, Apulia, and Campania, he collected a new army, awakened religious confidence by special sacrifices, and occupying strong positions among the Latian hills, contented himself with watching the movements of the Carthaginians, and intercepting their supplies. On one occasion, in the neighbourhood of Casilinum, he placed them in a critical position, from which Hannibal with difficulty extricated himself by setting fire to the brushwood, and thus compelling the Romans to fall back. He then followed the retiring foe through Samnium to the Apulian frontiers, gaining some advantage in occasional skirmishes. But his policy was not appreciated by his countrymen, and his venturous master of the horse, M. Minucius, was raised to co-ordinate authority, in the hope of obtaining by more vigorous operations more positive and palpable results. The imprudence of the measure speedily appeared; Minucius involved his troops in a perilous conflict, from which only the timely aid of Fabius rescued them; and the latter laid down his dictatorship, at the close of the legal term, with the credit of having given the first decided check to the famous son of Hamilcar. In his third and fourth consulships, 215, 214 b.c., and in his prætorship which followed, he laid siege to Capua, which had deserted to the Carthaginians, fortified Puteoli on the adjacent coast, captured Casilinum, and marching into the territory of the Samnites, reduced a number of their strongholds. Meanwhile Hannibal had advanced to Rome, and though he had speedily retired again into Campania, unwilling to undertake such a formidable enterprise as the siege of the city, or even to risk a battle beneath its walls, Fabius, on his return home, found the capital in a state of anxiety, which he exerted himself to allay by his calm and resolute counsels. Having held also the high office of pontifex maximus, and been employed as one of the duumvirs in dedicating additional temples, he was appointed president of the senate in his fifth consulship, 209 b.c.; and in the course of the same year, by the taking of Manduria and Tarentum, he plucked another leaf from the chaplet of the great Carthaginian, who is said to have exclaimed, when he heard of the recapture of Tarentum—"Nay, then, the Romans have also their Hannibal." This long series of patriotic services was partially dimmed in his later years by his unconcealed jealousy and dissatisfaction at the brilliant career of Scipio, whose exploits in Africa had the effect of recalling their formidable foe from the soil of Italy; and his death happened only a few months before the star of Hannibal's martial glory set upon the plains of Zama.—His son, Quintus Fabius Maximus, who held the prætorship 214 b.c., and the consulship in the following year, died before his father, who subsequently adopted a son of Paulus Æmilius; the latter, who received the name of Fabius Maximus Æmilianus, distinguished himself as prætor and consul in Sicily and Spain.
Quintus Fabius Pictor, who lived in the third century before the christian era, inherited the surname from his grandfather, Caius Fabius Pictor, a famous painter, who was employed to decorate the temple which the dictator Bibulus dedicated to the goddess of safety. An uncle, Numerius Fabius Pictor, was consul along with Decius Julius Pera, and distinguished himself in the war against the Sassanians and Sallentines. Quintus himself bore arms against the Gauls, 225 b.c.; he fought also in the second Punic war, and was sent to consult the Delphic oracle after the disastrous battle of Cannæ. But his literary pursuits engaged his principal attention, and his name holds a prominent place in the catalogue of early Roman historians. His "Annals" were written in Greek, commencing with the settlement of Æneas in Italy, and bringing down the narrative to his own times; and although Polybius depreciates their value on account of the writers partiality and strong desire to exalt his country, they have been freely cited by subsequent historians as
