Statue of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, made between 1773–1780 for Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna.

The gens Fabia was one of the most ancient patrician families at ancient Rome. The gens played a prominent part in history soon after the establishment of the Republic, and three brothers were invested with seven successive consulships, from 485 to 479 BC, thereby cementing the high repute of the family.^[1] Overall, the Fabii received 45 consulships during the Republic. The house derived its greatest lustre from the patriotic courage and tragic fate of the 306 Fabii in the Battle of the Cremera, 477 BC. But the Fabii were not distinguished as warriors alone; several members of the gens were also important in the history of Roman literature and the arts.^[2][3][4]

Background

The family is generally thought to have been counted amongst the gentes maiores, the most prominent of the patrician houses at Rome, together with the Aemilii, Claudii, Cornelii, Manlii, and Valerii; but no list of the gentes maiores has survived, and even the number of families so designated is a complete mystery. Until 480 BC, the Fabii were staunch supporters of the aristocratic policies favoring the patricians and the senate against the plebs. However, following a great battle that year against the Veientes, in which victory was achieved only by cooperation between the generals and their soldiers, the Fabii aligned themselves with the plebs.^[5][6]

One of the thirty-five voting tribes into which the Roman people were divided was named after the Fabii; several tribes were named after important gentes, including the tribes Aemilia, Claudia, Cornelia, Fabia, Papiria, Publilia, Sergia, and Veturia. Several of the others appear to have been named after lesser families.^[2]

The most famous legend of the Fabii asserts that, following the last of the seven consecutive consulships in 479 BC, the gens undertook the war with Veii as a private obligation. A militia consisting of over three hundred men of the gens, together with their friends and clients, a total of some four thousand men, stationed itself in arms on a hill overlooking the Cremera, a small river between Rome and Veii. The cause of this secession is said to have been the enmity between the Fabii and the patricians, who regarded them as traitors for advocating the causes of the plebeians. The Fabian militia remained in their camp on the Cremera for two years, successfully opposing the Veientes, until at last, on the fifteenth day before the kalends of Sextilis—July 18, 477 BC—they were lured into an ambush and destroyed.^[7][8] Three hundred and six Fabii of fighting age were said to have perished in the disaster, leaving only a single survivor to return home. By some accounts he was the only survivor of the entire gens; but it seems unlikely that the camp of the Fabii included not only all of the men, but the women and children of the family as well. They and the elders of the gens probably remained at Rome.

This story was considerably embellished at a later date in order to present the Battle of the Cremera as a Roman counterpart to the Greek Battle of Thermopylae.^{[lower-roman 1]} However, historian Tim Cornell writes that there is no reason to doubt the historicity of the battle, because the tribus Fabia—presumably where the Fabii had their country estates—was located near the Cremera, on the border with Veii.^[9] The day on which the Fabii perished was forever remembered, as it was the same day that the Gauls defeated the Roman army at the Battle of the Allia in 390 BC.^{[10][11][12][13][14][15]} The Gauls had marched on Rome only in retaliation after Quintus Fabius Ambustus, sent as an ambassador, broke a truce to attack the Gauls at Clusium.^[16]

Throughout the history of the Republic, the Fabii made several alliances with other prominent families, especially plebeian and Italian ones, which partly explains their long prominence. The first of such alliances that can be traced dates from the middle of the fifth century and was with the Poetelii; it lasted for at least a century.^[17] In the fourth century, the Fabii were allied to the patrician Manlii and the plebeian Genucii and Licinii, whom they supported during the Conflict of the Orders.^[18] They then occupied an unprecedented leading position in the third century, as three generations of Fabii were princeps senatus—a unique occurrence during the Republic.^{[lower-roman 2][19][20]} During this period, they allied with the plebeian Atilii from Campania, where the Fabii had significant estates, the Fulvii and Mamilii from Tusculum, the Otacili from Beneventum, the Ogulnii from Etruria, and the Marcii.^[21] They also sponsored the emergence of the Caecilii Metelli and Porcii, who owed their first consulate to the Fabii,^[22] as well as the re-emergence of the patrician Quinctii.^[23] The main direction of the second war against Carthage was disputed between the Fabii and the Cornelii Scipiones.^[24] The death of Fabius Verrucosus in 203 marks the end of the Fabian leadership on Roman politics, by now assumed by their rivals: Scipio Africanus and his family.^[25] After the consulship of Fabius Maximus Eburnus in 116, the Fabii entered a century-long eclipse, until their temporary revival under Augustus.^[26]

The name of the Fabii was associated with one of the two colleges of the Luperci, the priests who carried on the sacred rites of the ancient religious festival of the Lupercalia. The other college bore the name of the Quinctilii, suggesting that in the earliest times these two gentes superintended these rites as a sacrum gentilicum, much as the Pinarii and Potitii maintained the worship of Hercules. Such sacred rites were gradually transferred to the state, or opened to the Roman populus; a well-known legend attributed the destruction of the Potitii to the abandonment of its religious office. In later times the privilege of the Lupercalia had ceased to be confined to the Fabii and the Quinctilii.^{[2][27][28][29]}

Origin

The Capitoline Wolf with Romulus and Remus. One legend holds that their respective followers were called the Quinctilii and the Fabii.

According to legend, the Fabii claimed descent from Hercules, who visited Italy a generation before the Trojan War, and from Evander, his host, through Fabius. This brought the Fabii into the same tradition as the Pinarii and Potitii, who were said to have welcomed Hercules and learned from him the sacred rites which for centuries afterward they performed in his honor.^{[12][30][31][32][33]}

Another early legend stated that at the founding of Rome, the followers of the brothers Romulus and Remus were called the Quinctilii and the Fabii, respectively. The brothers were said to have offered up sacrifices in the cave of the Lupercal at the base of the Palatine Hill, which became the origin of the Lupercalia. This story is certainly connected with the tradition that the two colleges of the Luperci bore the names of these ancient gentes.^{[34][35][36][37]}

The nomen of the Fabii is said originally to have been Fovius, Favius, or Fodius; Plinius stated that it was derived from faba, a bean, a vegetable which the Fabii were said to have first cultivated. A more fanciful explanation derives the name from fovea, ditches, which the ancestors of the Fabii were said to have used in order to capture wolves.^[38]

It is uncertain whether the Fabii were of Latin or Sabine origin. Niebuhr, followed by Göttling, considered them Sabines. However, other scholars are unsatisfied with their reasoning, and point out that the legend associating the Fabii with Romulus and Remus would place them at Rome before the incorporation of the Sabines into the nascent Roman state.^[2]

It may nonetheless be noted that, even supposing this tradition to be based on actual historical events, the followers of the brothers were described as "shepherds," and presumably included many of the people then living in the countryside where the city of Rome was to be built. The hills of Rome were already inhabited at the time of the city's legendary founding, and they stood in the hinterland between the Latins, Sabines, and Etruscans. Even if many the followers of Romulus and Remus were Latins from the ancient city of Alba Longa, many may also have been Sabines already living in the surrounding countryside.^[39][40]

Praenomina

The earliest generations of the Fabii favored the praenomina Caeso, Quintus, and Marcus. They were the only patrician gens to make regular use of Numerius, which appears in the family after the destruction of the Fabii at the Cremera. According to the tradition related by Festus, this praenomen entered the gens when Quintus Fabius Vibulanus, the consul of 467, married a daughter of Numerius Otacilius of Maleventum, and bestowed his father-in-law's name on his son.^{[lower-roman 3][2][44]}

Although the Fabii Ambusti and some later branches of the family used the praenomen Gaius, Quintus is the name most frequently associated with the Fabii of the later Republic. The Fabii Maximi used it almost to the exclusion of all other names until the end of the Republic, when they revived the ancient praenomen Paullus.^{[lower-roman 4]} This was done in honor of the Aemilii Paulli, from whom the later Fabii Maximi were descended, having been adopted into the Fabia gens at the end of the 3rd century BC. A variety of surnames associated with the Aemilii were also used by this family, and one of the Fabii was called Africanus Fabius Maximus, although his proper name was Quintus Fabius Maximus Africanus.^[2][51] In a manuscript of Cicero, Servius appears among the Fabii Pictores, but this seems to have been a corruption in the manuscript, which originally read Numerius.^[52]

Branches and cognomina

Denarius of Gaius Fabius Hadrianus, 102 BC. On the obverse is the head of Cybele, a possible allusion to the visit to Rome of Battaces, a priest of Magna Mater.^[53] The reverse depicts Victoria driving a biga, with a flamingo below.

The cognomina of the Fabii under the Republic were Ambustus, Buteo, Dorso or Dorsuo, Labeo, Licinus, Maximus (with the agnomina Aemilianus, Allobrogicus, Eburnus, Gurges, Rullianus, Servilianus, and Verrucosus), Pictor, and Vibulanus. Other cognomina belonged to persons who were not, strictly speaking, members of the gens, but who were freedmen or the descendants of freedmen, or who had been enrolled as Roman citizens under the Fabii. The only cognomina appearing on coins are Hispaniensis, Labeo, Maximus, and Pictor.^[2][54]

In imperial times it becomes difficult to distinguish between members of the gens and unrelated persons sharing the same nomen. Members of the gens are known as late as the second century, but persons bearing the name of Fabius continue to appear into the latest period of the Empire.^[2]

The eldest branch of the Fabii bore the cognomen Vibulanus, which may allude to an ancestral home of the gens. The surname Ambustus, meaning "burnt", replaced Vibulanus at the end of the fifth century BC; the first of the Fabii to be called Ambustus was a descendant of the Vibulani. The most celebrated stirps of the Fabia gens, which bore the surname Maximus, was in turn descended from the Fabii Ambusti. This family was famous for its statesmen and its military exploits, which lasted from the Samnite Wars, in the fourth century BC until the wars with the Germanic invaders of the second century BC. Most, if not all of the later Fabii Maximi were descendants of Quintus Fabius Maximus Aemilianus, one of the Aemilii Paulli, who as a child was adopted into that illustrious family.^{[2][lower-roman 5]}

Buteo, which described a type of hawk,^[55] was originally given to a member of the Fabia gens because such a bird on one occasion settled upon his ship with a favorable omen. This tradition, related by Plinius, does not indicate which of the Fabii first obtained this surname, but it was probably one of the Fabii Ambusti.^[2][56] Crawford suggests that the buteo of the legend was not a hawk, but a flamingo, based on the appearance of a bird resembling a flamingo on the coins of Gaius Fabius Hadrianus, who may have sought to associate himself with that family by the use of such a symbol. Hadrianus and his descendants form the last distinguishable family of the Fabii. Their surname was probably derived from the Latin colony of Hatria, and it is likely that they were not lineal descendants of the Fabii Buteones, but newly-enfranchised citizens.^[57] The flamingo might also allude to the family's coastal origins.^[58]

The surname Pictor, borne by another family of the Fabii, signifies a painter,^[59] and the earliest known member of this family was indeed a painter, famed for his work in the temple of Salus, built by Gaius Junius Bubulcus Brutus between 307 and 302 BC. The later members of this family, several of whom were distinguished in the arts, appear to have been his descendants, and must have taken their cognomen from this ancestor.^[2] The cognomen Labeo—originally denoting someone with prominent lips^[60]—appears at the beginning of the second century BC; Quintus Fabius Labeo, the first of that name, was also a poet, but his line vanished before the end of the century.

Members

This list includes abbreviated praenomina. For an explanation of this practice, see filiation.

Coin of one of the Fabii Maximi, minted during the reign of Augustus

Fabii Pictores

Denarius of Numerius Fabius Pictor, 126 BC. On the obverse is the head of Roma; on the reverse is Quintus Fabius Pictor, the praetor of 189, holding an apex and shield inscribed QVIRIN, alluding to his status of Flamen Quirinalis.

• Gaius Fabius M. f. Pictor, painted the interior of the temple of Salus, dedicated in 302 BC.^{[143][144][145][146][147]}
• Gaius Fabius C. f. M. n. Pictor, consul in 269 BC.^[148]
• Numerius Fabius C. f. M. n. Pictor, ambassador in 273 BC, he accompanied Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges to the court of Ptolemy II Philadelphos. Consul in 266, he triumphed over the Sassinates, and again over the Sallentini and Messapii.^{[99][149][150]}
• Quintus Fabius C. f. C. n. Pictor, ambassador in 216 BC, he was sent to consult the oracle of Delphi in order to find ways to appease the gods after the disaster of Cannae. Pictor is known as the earliest of the Latin historians, although he wrote in Greek; he was an important source for later annalists, but most of his own work has been lost.^[151][152]
• Quintus Fabius Q. f. C. n. Pictor, praetor in 189 BC, received Sardinia as his province, but was compelled by the pontifex maximus to remain at Rome, because he was Flamen Quirinalis; his abdication was rejected by the senate, which designated him praetor peregrinus. He died in 167.^[153][154]
• Numerius Fabius Q. f. Q. n. Pictor, an annalist and antiquarian of the second century BC.^{[155][52][156]}
• Numerius Fabius N. f. Q. n. Pictor, triumvir monetalis in 126 BC.^[2][157]

Fabii Labeones

Denarius of Quintus Fabius Labeo, 124 BC. The obverse depicts the head of Roma, while the obverse shows Jupiter driving a quadriga. The prow below alludes to his grandfather's naval triumph.

• Quintus Fabius Q. f. Q. n. Labeo, quaestor urbanus in 196 BC. Praetor then propraetor in 189 and 188, he defeated the naval forces of Antiochus III, for which he received a naval triumph the following year. He was triumvir for establishing the colonies of Potentia and Pisaurum in 184, and Saturnia in 183. He was consul in 183, and proconsul in Liguria the following year. He also became pontiff in 180, and was part of a commission of ten men sent to advise Aemilius Paullus on the settlement of Macedonia in 167. He was also a poet, according to Suetonius.^{[168][169][170][171]}
• Quintus Fabius Q. f. Q. n. Labeo, a learned orator known whose eloquence is mentioned by Cicero. He must have lived about the middle of the second century BC, and either he or more probably his son was proconsul in Spain, where the name occurs on some milestones.^{[172][173][174]}
• Quintus Fabius Q. f. Q. n. Labeo, triumvir monetalis in 124 BC. He was probably proconsul in Spain between 120 and 100 BC.^{[175][173][176][174]}

Others

Tetradrachm of Gaius Fabius Hadrianus, as proconsul at Pergamon (with the local magistrate Demeas), circa 57 BC. On the obverse is a Cista mystica within ivy wreath; on the reverse is a bow case between two serpents, with a thyrsus on the right.

• Fabius Dorsennus, a Latin comic playwright, whose style and care was criticized by Quintus Horatius Flaccus.^{[188][189][190]}
• Fabius, an hypothetical tribune of the plebs in 64 BC. He might have carried a bill reducing the number of attendants a candidate could bring with him at an election.^[191][192]
• Gaius Fabius, tribune of the plebs in 55 BC, passed a law complementing Caesar's agrarian law. He served under Caesar as a legate from 54 to 49 BC, during the second half of the Gallic Wars and at the start of the Civil War.^[193]
• Quintus Fabius Sanga, warned Cicero about the conspiracy of Catiline, after being informed by the ambassadors of the Allobroges.^{[194][195][196]}
• Quintus Fabius Vergilianus, legate of Appius Claudius Pulcher in Cilicia in 51 BC; during the Civil War, he espoused the cause of Pompeius.^[197]
• Publius Fabius Blandus, named in a sepulchral inscription from Firmum Picenum, dating between the late first century BC and the first half of the first century AD.^[198]
• Fabia P. f. Pollitta, probably the daughter of Publius Fabius Blandus, named in the same inscription from Firmum Picenum.^[198]
• Fabia P. l. Bassa, the freedwoman of Publius Fabius Blandus, named in the same inscription from Firmum Picenum.^[198]
• Publius Fabius Firmanus, consul suffectus in the early years of the reign of the emperor Claudius.^[199]
• Fabius Rusticus, a historian of the mid-first century AD, frequently quoted by Tacitus on the life of Nero.^[200]
• Fabius Fabullus, legate of Legio V Alaudae, chosen as a leader of the soldiers who mutinied against Aulus Caecina Alienus in AD 69; perhaps the same man to whom the murder of the emperor Galba was attributed.^[201][202]
• Gaius Fabius Valens, one of the principal generals of Vitellius, and consul suffectus ex kal. Sept. in AD 69.
• Fabius Priscus, one of the legates sent against Civilis in AD 70.^[203]
• Fabius Ululitremulus, a shopkeeper in Pompeii. A graffito from the doorpost of his shop alludes to the Aeneid, and praises Minerva as the patron of the fullones.^[204][205]
• Marcus Fabius Rufus, the last owner of a rich villa in Pompeii.^[206]
• Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, the most celebrated of Roman rhetoricians, granted the insignia and title of consul by Domitian.
• Lucius Fabius Tuscus, consul suffectus in 100.
• Lucius Fabius Justus, a distinguished rhetorician, and a friend of both Tacitus and the younger Pliny.^[207][208]
• Lucius Julius Gainius Fabius Agrippa. A Roman descendant of the Herodian dynasty, gymnasiarch of Apamea and one of the most prominent citizens of the city in the 110s. Possibly an ancestor to usurper Jotapianus, though it is unclear if the initial "F." in Jotapianus' name stands for "Fabius".
• Ceionia Fabia, an adoptive granddaughter of Hadrian, and sister of the emperor Lucius Verus. Her name indicates descent from the gens Fabia, though her ancestry is obscure.
• Quintus Fabius Catullinus, consul in AD 130.^[2]
• Fabius Cornelius Repentinus, appointed praefectus praetorio in the reign of Antoninus Pius.^[209]
• Fabius Mela, an eminent jurist, probably of the mid-2nd century.^[210]
• Lucius Fabius Cilo Septimianus, consul suffectus in AD 193 and consul in 204.^{[211][212][213]}
• Fabius Sabinus, one of the consiliarii of Alexander Severus, perhaps the same Sabinus later driven out of Rome by order of Elagabalus.^[214]
• Fabia Orestilla, supposedly the wife of Gordian I, and mother of his children. Her name appears only in the Augustan History.
• Quintus Fabius Clodius Agrippianus Celsinus, Proconsul of Caria in 249.
• Fabianus, Pope from 236 to 250. Supposedly of noble Roman birth, his father's name was reportedly Fabius.
• Titus Fabius Titianus, consul in AD 337.^[99]
• Aconia Fabia Paulina, a pagan priestess during the late fourth century, wife of Vettius Agorius Praetextatus.
• Saint Fabiola, a Christian ascetic of the late fourth century, she was later declared a saint.
• Quintus Fabius Memmius Symmachus, a politician of the late fourth and early fifth century, who was appointed Quaestor at the age of ten. Possibly a pagan, he was alleged to have built a temple to Flora.
• Fabius Planciades Fulgentius, a Latin grammarian, probably not earlier than the sixth century.
• Fabia Eudocia, first empress-consort of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius. She was born in the Exarchate of Africa, and died in AD 612, reportedly due to epilepsy. One of her two known children was Constantine III.

See also

• List of Roman gentes

Footnotes

References

Bibliography