Fabius

For more information on Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, visit Britannica.com.

Fabius Maximus, ‘Cunctator’ (c.280-203 bc), was Roman consul for the first time in 233/2, won a victory in Liguria, was censor in 230/29, and consul for the second time in 228/7. In 218 he was opposed to war with Carthage, but after Hannibal's victory at Lake Trasimene he was elected dictator. He proceeded to implement the strategy of refusing to be drawn into pitched battles, for which he earned the nickname ‘Cunctator’ (‘Delayer’) and which has become known as ‘fabian’ after him. The disaster at Cannae reinforced the wisdom of this approach and led to successive consulships for himself and his son in 215/14 and 214/13. During his fifth and final consulship in 209/8 he recaptured Tarentum and was chosen princeps senatus (‘Father of the House’). He lived on to oppose Scipio ‘Africanus'’ plan for the invasion of Africa and to attack him over the atrocities committed by one of his lieutenants in Locri. Renowned for his caution and conservative attitude, Fabius was rightly regarded as the man who denied Hannibal further victories in the field, at a time when even Rome's resolution might have cracked. But he arguably carried his caution too far when Rome began to recover.

Bibliography

• Lazenby, J. F., Hannibal's War (Warminster, 1978)

— John Lazenby

Fabius Maximus Verrucōsus, Cunctātor, Quintus (c.275–203 BC), the famous Roman general and consul of the Second Punic War, dictator in 221 and again in 217 after Hannibal destroyed the consul Flaminius and the Roman army at the battle of Lake Trasimene. During the six months of his second period of office he fought a defensive war against Hannibal (see PUNIC WARS), and was called in consequence Cunctator, ‘delayer’, by doggedly following Hannibal's movements while avoiding a direct encounter. After Rome ventured on a pitched battle at Cannae in 216 and was disastrously defeated, Fabius' evasive strategy had to be resumed. The name derisively given to him took on an honourable connotation, and was incorporated in a famous line by the poet Ennius: unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem (‘one man by his delaying restored the situation for us’). Fabius was consul (and leader of the senate) for the fifth time in 209 when he recovered Tarentum (Taranto) from the Carthaginians. He strenuously opposed the plans of Scipio (Africanus), who had driven the Carthaginians out of Spain by 205, to take the war into the enemy's country by invading Africa; he died in 203, at about the time of Hannibal's departure from Italy, before the favourable conclusion of the war. Fabius was rightly called the Shield of Rome and was admired by later generations for his (perhaps unimaginative) courage and his old-fashioned patrician virtues. In British politics ‘Fabianism’ describes a socialist policy of cautious advance, as opposed to immediate revolution.

(Known as "the Cunctator.") Died 203 B.C.

Roman general who ultimately defeated (209) the superior forces of Hannibal through delay tactics, thereby avoiding direct conflict and giving Rome sufficient time to muster a great army.

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