FA'BIUS, the name of one of the oldest and most illustrious patrician families of Rome. Three brothers of this name alternately held the office of consul for seven years (485-479 n.c.). In 479, the Fabii, under K. Fabius Vibulamis, migrated to the banks of the Cremera, a small stream that flows into the Tiber a few miles above Rome. Here, two years after, they were decoyed into an ambuscade by the Vcientes, with whom they had been at war, and, with the exception of one member, who had remained at Rome, and through whom the race was perpetuated, the entire Bens, consisting of 306 men, were put to the sword. The most eminent of the Fabii were Quintus Fabius William's —supposed to have been the first who obtained for himself and his family the surname of Maximus—and his descendant, Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, named Cunc tator, the delayer. The former was the most eminent of the Roman generals in the second Samnite war, and was twice dictator, and six times consul. The later, who, in the course of his career, was five times consul, and twice censor, was elected dictator immediately after the defeat of the Romans at Trasimenus. The peculiar line of tactics which he observed in the second Punic war obtained for him the surname by which he is best known in history. Hanging on the heights like a thundercloud,
to which Hannibal himself compared him, and avoiding a direct engagement, lie tantalized the enemy with his caution, harassed them by marches and countermarches, and cut off their stragglers and foragers, while at the same time his delay allowed Rome to assemble her forces in greater strength. This policy—which has become proverbial as "Fabian policy "—although the wisest in the circumstances, was neither appreciated in the camp nor at home; and shortly after, Marcus Minucius Rufus, master of the horse, was raised to an equal share in the dictatorship, a position. however, which he occupied but for a short time. During• his fifth consulship, Fabius recovered Tarentum, which had long been one of Hannibal's important positions. He died in 203 B.C. C. Fabius, surnamed Pictor, executed upon the walls of the temple of Salon —dedicated by the dictator C. Junius Brutus Bubulus in 302—the earliest Roman. paintings of which we have any record; and his grandson, Q. Fabius Pictor, was the first writer of a Roman history in prose.