FABIUS PICTOR, QUINTUS, the father of Roman his tory, was born about 2S4 B.c. He took an active part in the sub jugation of the Gauls in the north of Italy (225), and after the battle of Cannae (216) was sent by the Romans to consult the Delphic oracle. He was the earliest prose writer of Roman his tory. His sources were the Annales Maximi, Commentarii Con sulares, and similar records ; the chronicles of the great Roman families; and his own experiences in the second Punic war. He is also said to have made much use of the Greek historian Diocles of Peparethus. His work, which was written in Greek, began with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy, and ended with the Hannibalic war. Polybius uses him as his chief authority for the second Punic war. A Latin version existed in the time of Cicero, but it is doubtful whether it was by Fabius Pictor or by a later writer with whom he was confused—Q. Fabius Maximus Servilianus (consul 142) ; or there may have been two annalists of the name of Fabius Pictor.
Fragments in H. Peter, Historicorum Romanorum Fragmenta (1883) ; see also ANNALISTS and LIVY, and Teuffel-Schwabe, History of Roman Literature, §116. See E. S. Duckett, Studies in Ennius (Bryn Mawr college monographs, No. 18).