Fabia gens

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.

[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.

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.

[i] 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.

[ii][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.

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[52] 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.

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.

Statue of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus , made between 1773–1780 for Schönbrunn Palace , Vienna .
The Capitoline Wolf with Romulus and Remus . One legend holds that their respective followers were called the Quinctilii and the Fabii .
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.
Coin of one of the Fabii Maximi, minted during the reign of Augustus
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.
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.
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.