Table Of ContentClan Fabius,
Defenders of Rome
Clan Fabius.indd 1 26/06/2018 11:42
For Olivia
Clan Fabius.indd 2 26/06/2018 11:42
Clan Fabius,
Defenders of Rome
A History of the Republic’s
Most Illustrious Family
Jeremiah McCall
Clan Fabius.indd 3 26/06/2018 11:42
First published in Great Britain in 2018
by Pen & Sword History
An imprint of Pen & Sword Books Limited
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS
Copyright © Jeremiah McCall 2018
ISBN 978 1 47388 561 5
The right of Jeremiah McCall to be identified as
Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.
Typeset in Ehrhardt
by Mac Style
Printed and bound in the UK
by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
Pen & Sword Books Limited incorporates the imprints of Atlas,
Archaeology, Aviation, Discovery, Family History, Fiction, History,
Maritime, Military, Military Classics, Politics, Select, Transport,
True Crime, Air World, Frontline Publishing, Leo Cooper,
Remember When, Seaforth Publishing, The Praetorian Press,
Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe Transport,
Wharncliffe True Crime and White Owl.
For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact
PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: www. pen-and-sword.co.uk
Clan Fabius.indd 4 26/06/2018 11:42
Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
Chapter 2 Shadows of the Past: The Fabii and the Fledgling Republic 10
Chapter 3 The First Fabius Maximus, Rullianus and the Samnite
Wars 33
Chapter 4 The Battle of Sentinum 67
Chapter 5 Fabius Maximus Cunctator and the War against Hannibal 86
Chapter 6 The Fabian Strategy and the End of the War 115
Chapter 7 Spanish Wars, Gallic Wars, Civil Wars and the End of
the Line 149
Appendix A: Roman Names 170
Appendix B: Glossary of Some Technical Terms 171
Appendix C: Glossary of Major Sources for the Republic 173
Appendix D: Online Sources of Ancient Authors in Translation 175
Notes 177
Bibliography 195
Index 198
Clan Fabius.indd 5 26/06/2018 11:42
Clan Fabius.indd 6 26/06/2018 11:42
Chapter 1
Introduction
F
or centuries after the event, the Romans told tales of a noble clan, the
Fabii, whose men sacrificed their lives for the good of the Republic.1 As
the ancient stories had it, for a span of years, 485–479 bc by our reckoning,
the three sons of Kaeso Fabius – Kaeso the younger, Quintus and Marcus – had
reached the pinnacle of political power in the early decades of the Republic.2
Each had served more than once as one of the two yearly consuls, the powerful
magistrates who commanded Rome’s legions and executed its laws.3 Under their
command, Roman armies had successfully defended the fledgling Republic from
ever-present foes in central Italy: the tribes of Aequi, Volsci and Hernici, and
the rival Etruscan city-state of Veii. Yet despite Roman successes, these enemies
continued to threaten from all sides. Powerful Veii posed a special threat. The
Veientes forded the Tiber River into Roman territory with impunity, raiding
herds and carrying off loot. The Roman Army, slow to muster and needed
elsewhere, could not respond to the constant threat. Hence the Fabii, loyal Roman
Ancient Italy.
Clan Fabius.indd 1 26/06/2018 11:42
2 Clan Fabius, Defenders of Rome
aristocrats – descended, tradition had it, from a romance between Hercules and
a nymph, and standing alongside Romulus when the city was founded – offered
their services to the nascent Republic.4 At their own expense and from their own
family, they would muster a warband, build a fort on the far side of the Cremera
River and punish the Veientes for their crimes. The tales differ at this point:
either the Fabii alone, some 300 men, built the fort that was to be a thorn in
Veii’s side, or they brought along their loyal retainers and clients, some 4,000,
to assist. But the effect was clear. The Fabii watched the frontiers and took their
own vengeance on Veii, raiding its lands and plundering its herds. For some time,
the Roman border with Veii was quiet, well protected by Fabian arms.
And then, disaster. The Veientes baited a trap, leaving some prime flocks
ostensibly untended while gathering their forces just out of sight. The Fabii,
bold from their many successful raids, approached the flocks without scouting
the surrounding environs: a mistake. Veientine warriors burst out of hiding and
surrounded the valiant Fabii. Herders no more, now the Fabii were themselves
herded into a cramped space. Though they fought mightily, the tale-tellers told,
they died where they stood, overwhelmed. Three hundred and six Fabii died that
day, all the men in the family. The Fabian clan would have been extinguished
forever, except that one youth, named Marcus, escaped the massacre. He became
the progenitor of what would eventually become the Fabius Maximus clan, the
father of a family of heroes who would serve the Republic well indeed over the
centuries.
These tales of the three brothers and the disaster at the Cremera mark the first
discoverable appearance of that famous Fabian clan in the history of the Roman
Republic. To understand that tale and consider what historical reality may be
behind it, however, requires some background in the early history of the Romans.
According to the accounts later Romans wrote, the city was founded on some hills
south of the Tiber less than 20 miles from the sea by the legendary king Romulus
in the middle of the eighth century bc.5 Six subsequent kings ruled the nascent
state, tradition told, each contributing important religious, political, military
and legal customs and institutions. As Rome developed internally, it also grew
in power and prestige in the region of central Italy called Latium. After a couple
of centuries under beneficent masters, however, the Romans came to be ruled
by a malevolent Etruscan king, Tarquinius Superbus, ‘Tarquin the Proud’. His
oppressive rule, and his son’s rape of the virtuous Lucretia, wife of an influential
young man, pushed the Roman aristocracy past the breaking point, and, in the
late sixth century, those aristocrats eradicated the monarchy and replaced it with
a new form of government, the Republic. The name itself in Latin is res publica
and means ‘public affairs’ or ‘public matters’.
Historians have frequently challenged the details of this ancient narrative. The
basic picture that the city of Rome began as a monarchy is plausible enough, as
is the creation of a Republic. It seems clear, however, that the Republican form
Clan Fabius.indd 2 26/06/2018 11:42
Introduction 3
of government did not simply spring fully formed from the murdered monarchy.
Rather, its offices and their powers and interactions, the rules of politics,
developed slowly over the centuries.6 Still, since the historical Fabii were, first
and foremost, aristocrats of the Roman Republic, it is worth briefly examining
the basic components of that Republic.
The Workings of the Roman Republic
Polybius is the starting point for those investigating the classical Republic of the
second century bc.7 A citizen of Greek Megalopolis, he became a politician and
military leader for the Achaean League of city-states to which his city belonged.
That League ran afoul of the Romans early in the second century bc. In 167,
following Rome’s crushing victory over king Perseus of Macedonia, the Roman
Senate opted to arrest prominent Achaean citizens, Polybius among them.
Deported to Rome, they served as hostages for the League’s good behaviour.
Polybius was luckier than most of his fellow-captives. He met the young Roman
aristocrat Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus and became the boy’s tutor
and friend. Enabled by this friendship over the years to access Roman political
and military workings, Polybius decided to investigate the Romans and write
an account – some of which still survives – of Roman institutions and how
Rome had come to dominate the Mediterranean over the course of the second
century bc. His work offers the most thorough description of the Republic as it
ostensibly functioned in the second century, an account that is supplemented and
corroborated by all manner of references in the ancient sources.8
Polybius, who wrote in Greek for an audience not wholly familiar with Roman
customs, suggests three political organs shared power in the Roman Republic.9
The consuls were the chief magistrates. Elected in pairs that held office for one
year only, the consuls were the chief executives and military commanders. They
held by right of their office imperium, a term that translates roughly as ‘power’.
That power included the right to levy and command armies and have one’s
commands obeyed. Though Polybius does not mention them in his basic account,
there were other magistrates in the Roman government: among others, praetors
who served as judges and, by the middle Republic, governors of territories under
Roman control, aediles, who maintained the temples and held public games,
and censors, who were responsible for managing the lists of citizens and their
corresponding military obligations.
The second critical government body was the Senate. Until perhaps 300 bc,
the Senate was little more than a group of distinguished elders selected first by
the kings and later by the chief magistrates to provide counsel. The informality
of membership in the Senate meant the body of senators fluctuated from year
to year. Under these circumstances, the Senate did not fully function as a
regular governing body. Over time, however, the custom developed that it might
Clan Fabius.indd 3 26/06/2018 11:42
