FABIUS, the name of a number of Roman soldiers and states men. The Fabian gens was one of the oldest and most distin guished patrician families of Rome. Its members claimed descent from Hercules and a daughter of the Arcadian Evander. From the earliest times it played a prominent part in Roman history, and was one of the two gentes exclusively charged with the man agement of the most ancient festival in Rome—the Lupercalia (Ovid, Fasti, ii. 375). The chief family names of the Fabian gens or clan, in republican times, were Vibulanus, Ambustus, Maximus, Buteo, Pictor, Dorso, Labeo ; with surnames Verrucosus, Rullianus, Gurges Aemilianus, Allobrogicus (all of the Maximus branch). The most important members of the family are the following:— I . MARCUS FABIUS AMBUSTUS, ponti f ex maximus in the year of the capture of Rome by the Gauls (39o). His three sons, sent as ambassadors to the Gauls when they were besieging Clusium, subsequently took part in hostilities (Livy v. 35). The Gauls thereupon demanded their surrender, on the ground that they had violated the law of nations; the Romans, by way of reply, elected them consular tribunes in the following year. The result was the march of the Gauls upon Rome, the battle of the Allia, and the capture of the city (Livy vi. 1).
2. Q. FABIUS MAXIMUS, surnamed Rullianus or Rullus, master of the horse in the second Samnite War to L. Papirius Cursor, by whom he was degraded for having fought the Samnites contrary to orders (Livy viii. 3o), in spite of the fact that he gained a victory. In 315, when dictator, he was defeated by the Samnites at Lautulae (Livy ix. 23) . In 310 he defeated the Etruscans at the Vadimonian Lake. In 295, consul for the fifth time, he defeated, at the great battle of Sentinum, the combined forces of the Etrurians, Umbrians, Samnites and Gauls (see ROME : History, II. "The Republic"). As censor (3o4) he limited the freedmen to the four city.tribes.
3. QUINTUS FABIUS MAXIMUS, surnamed Cunctator ("the de layer," from his cautious tactics in the war against Hannibal), grandson of the preceding. He served his first consulship in Liguria (233 B.c.), was censor (23o) and consul for the second time (228). In 218 he was sent to Carthage to demand satisfac tion for the attack on Saguntum (Livy xxi. 18). According to the well-known story, he held up a fold of his toga and offered the Carthaginians the choice between peace and war. When they de clared themselves indifferent, he let fall his toga with the words, "Then take war." After the disasters of the Trebia and Lake Trasimenus, Fabius was named dictator (Livy calls him pro dictator, since he was nominated, not by the consul, but by the people) in 217, and began his tactics of "masterly inactivity." Manoeuvring among the hills, where Hannibal's cavalry were use less, he cut off his supplies, harassed him incessantly, and did everything except fight. His steady adherence to his plan caused dissatisfaction at Rome and in his own camp. Minucius Rufus, his master of the horse, during the absence of Fabius at Rome, made a successful attack upon the enemy. The people then di vided the command between Minucius and Fabius (Livy xxii. 15. 24; Polybius iii. 88). Minucius was led into an ambuscade by Hannibal, and his army was only saved by the opportune arrivai of Fabius. Minucius confessed his mistake and henceforth sub mitted to the orders of Fabius (Livy xxiii. 32). At the end of the legal time of six months Fabius resigned the dictatorship, and the result of the abandonment of Fabian tactics was the disaster of Cannae (216). In and 214 (as consul for the third and fourth times) he was in charge of the operations against Hannibal to gether with Claudius Marcellus (Livy xxiii. 39). He laid siege to Capua, which had gone over to Hannibal after Cannae, and cap tured the important position of Casilinum; in his fifth consulship (209) he retook Tarentum, which had been occupied by Hannibal for three years (Livy xxvii. 15; Polybius xiii. 4 ; Plutarch, Fabius) . He died in 203. Fabius was a strenuous opponent of the new aggressive policy, and did all he could to prevent the invasion of Africa by Scipio. In his later years he became morose, and showed jealousy of rising young men, especially Scipio (Life by Plutarch; Livy xx.–xxx. ; Polybius iii. 87-106).
4. Q. FABIUS VIBULANUS, with his brothers Caeso and Marcus, filled the consulship for seven years in succession B.c.). In the last year there was a reaction against the family, in conse quence of Caeso's espousing the cause of the plebeians. Thereupon the Fabii emigrated from Rome under the leadership of Caeso, and settled on the banks of the Cremera, a few miles above Rome. For two years they defended the city against the Veientes, until at last they were surprised and cut off. The only survivor of the gens was Quintus, the son of Marcus, who apparently took no part in the battle. This Quintus was consul in 467, 465 and 459, and a member of the second decemvirate in 45o, on the fall of which he went into voluntary exile (Livy ii. 42, 48-5o, iii. I, 9, 41, 58, vi. 1 ; Dion Halic. viii. 82-86, ix. 14-22; Ovid, Fasti, ii. The Fabian name is met with as late as the and century A.D. A complete list of the Fabii will be found in de Vit's Onomasticon; see also W. N. du Rieu, Disputatio de Gente Fabia (1856), containing an account of 57 members of the family.