Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus (280-203 BC), better known as Fabius Cunctator, was a Roman consul in 233, 228, 215, 214, and 209 BC and dictator in 221 and 217 BC. He played a major role in the Roman victory during the Second Punic War, during which his delaying tactics (which earned him the cognomen "Cunctator", meaning "delayer") forced the Carthaginian general Hannibal to retreat from Italy after consuming all of his supplies.
Biography[]
Fabius in the Roman Senate
Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, known as Cunctator (delayer) because of his war strategy, was an unlikely Roman hero of the long struggle against Hannibal in the Second Punic War. A member of Rome's aristocratic elite, Fabius had a minor military reputation won as consul in 233 BC, when he crushed the Ligurians,a tribal people from northern Italy and southern Gaul, and drove them into the Alps. If Fabius played any part in the First Punic War, it has not been recorded. But when Hannibal destroyed an army led by Gaius Flaminius in June 217 BC, it was to the sextagenarian Fabian that the panicking Romans turned for leadership. He was made dictator, a six-month appointment that carried extraordinary powers to cope with an emergency. Taking command of the Roman Army, Fabius immediately adopted the delaying approach for which he is famed, shadowing Hannibal's army and harassing his foragers, but refusing pitched battle. Understandably, his tactic did not satisfy most Romans, since it involved the army doing nothing while Hannibal plundered fertile terrain. Discontent soon found a focus in Fabian's second-in-command, Marcus Minucius Rufus. After a humiliating episode in which Hannibal gave Fabius the slip under cover of darkness, Minutius restored some Roman pride with a successful attack on Carthaginian forces outside Gerunium. Although only a skirmish, it confirmed general opinion that Fabius was the wrong man for the task. At the end of the month he was not reappointed, and Rufus was killed at the Battle of Cannae, probably the worst military disaster in Roman history. Fabius' military genius was now evident to all. He waselected as a consul for the next two years, and was to play a leading role in restoring Roman morale and rebuilding the army. The war against Hannibal was continued by others along the lines that hehad laid down. Denied the chance of a decisive victory in battle, the Carthaginians' positions weakened over time and Rome grew stronger. Elected consul for the third time in 209 BC, Fabius achieved a last victory in the recapture of the major southern Italian city of Tarentum, lost to Hannibal three years earlier. He never led an army again, although he did later oppose Scipio Africanus' plan to invade Africa - fortunately for Rome, his caution did not prevail. He died shortly before Scipio's army left for Carthage.
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