Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
any understanding. But this will, perhaps, seem a subject fitter for
some other consideration, and that ought to be treated of in some other
place.
The course of public affairs after his death produced a quick and speedy
sense of the loss of Pericles. Those who, while he lived, resented his
great authority, as that which eclipsed themselves, presently after his
quitting the stage, making trial of other orators and demagogues,
readily acknowledged that there never had been in nature such a
disposition as his was, more moderate and reasonable in the height of
that state he took upon him, or more grave and impressive in the
mildness which he used. And that invidious arbitrary power, to which
formerly they gave the name of monarchy and tyranny, did then appear to
have been the chief bulwark of public safety; so great a corruption and
such a flood of mischief and vice followed, which he, by keeping weak
and low, had withheld from notice, and had prevented from attaining
incurable height through a licentious impunity.
FABIUS
Having related the memorable actions of Pericles, our history now
proceeds to the life of Fabius. A son of Hercules and a nymph, or some
woman of that country, who brought him forth on the banks of Tiber, was,
it is said, the first Fabius, the founder of the numerous and
distinguished family of the name. Others will have it that they were
first called Fodii, because the first of the race delighted in digging
pitfalls for wild beasts, fodere being still the Latin for to dig, and
fossa for a ditch, and that in process of time, by the change of the two
letters they grew to be called Fabii. But be these things true or
false, certain it is that this family for a long time yielded a great
number of eminent persons. Our Fabius, who was fourth in descent from
that Fabius Rullus who first brought the honorable surname of Maximus
into his family, was also, by way of personal nickname, called
Verrucosus, from a wart on his upper lip; and in his childhood they in
like manner named him Ovicula, or The Lamb, on account of his extreme
mildness of temper. His slowness in speaking, his long labor and pains
in learning, his deliberation in entering into the sports of other
children, his easy submission to everybody, as if he had no will of his
own, made those who judged superficially of him, the greater number,
esteem him insensible and stupid; and few only saw that this tardiness
proceeded from stability, and discerned the greatness of his mind, and
the lionlikeness of his temper. But as soon as he came into
employments, his virtues exerted and showed themselves; his reputed want
of energy then was recognized by people in general, as a freedom of
passion; his slowness in words and actions, the effect of a true
prudence; his want of rapidity, and his sluggishness, as constancy and
firmness.
Living in a great commonwealth, surrounded by many enemies, he saw the
wisdom of inuring his body (nature's own weapon) to warlike exercises,
and disciplining his tongue for public oratory in a style comformable
to his life and character. His eloquence, indeed, had not much of
popular ornament, nor empty artifice, but there was in it great weight
of sense; it was strong and sententious, much after the way of
Thucydides. We have yet extant his funeral oration upon the death of
his son, who died consul, which he recited before the people.
He was five times consul, and in his first consulship had the honor of a
triumph for the victory he gained over the Ligurians, whom he defeated
in a set battle, and drove them to take shelter in the Alps, from whence
they never after made any inroad nor depredation upon their neighbors.
After this, Hannibal came into Italy, who, at his first entrance, having
gained a great battle near the river Trebia, traversed all Tuscany with
his victorious army, and, desolating the country round about, filled
Rome itself with astonishment and terror. Besides the more common signs
of thunder and lightning then happening, the report of several unheard
of and utterly strange portents much increased the popular
consternation. For it was said that some targets sweated blood; that at
Antium, when they reaped their corn, many of the ears were filled with
blood; that it had rained redhot stones; that the Falerians had seen the
heavens open and several scrolls falling down, in one of which was
plainly written, "Mars himself stirs his arms." But these prodigies had
no effect upon the impetuous and fiery temper of the consul Flaminius,
whose natural promptness had been much heightened by his late unexpected
victory over the Gauls, when he fought them contrary to the order of the
senate and the advice of his colleague. Fabius, on the other side,
thought it not seasonable to engage with the enemy; not that he much
regarded the prodigies, which he thought too strange to be easily
understood, though many were alarmed by them; but in regard that the
Carthaginians were but few, and in want of money and supplies, he deemed
it best not to meet in the field a general whose army had been tried in
many encounters, and whose object was a battle, but to send aid to their
allies, control the movements of the various subject cities, and let the
force and vigor of Hannibal waste away and expire, like a flame, for want
of aliment.
These weighty reasons did not prevail with Flaminius, who protested he
would never suffer the advance of the enemy to the city, nor be reduced,
like Camillus in former time, to fight for Rome within the walls of
Rome. Accordingly he ordered the tribunes to draw out the army into the
field; and though he himself, leaping on horseback to go out, was no
sooner mounted but the beast, without any apparent cause, fell into so
violent a fit of trembling and bounding that he cast his rider headlong
on the ground, he was no ways deterred; but proceeded as he had begun,
and marched forward up to Hannibal, who was posted near the Lake
Thrasymene in Tuscany. At the moment of this engagement, there happened
so great an earthquake, that it destroyed several towns, altered the
course of rivers, and carried off parts of high cliffs, yet such was the
eagerness of the combatants, that they were entirely insensible of it.
In this battle Flaminius fell, after many proofs of his strength and
courage, and round about him all the bravest of the army, in the whole,
fifteen thousand were killed, and as many made prisoners. Hannibal,
desirous to bestow funeral honors upon the body of Flaminius, made
diligent search after it, but could not find it among the dead, nor was
it ever known what became of it. Upon the former engagement near
Trebia, neither the general who wrote, nor the express who told the
news, used straightforward and direct terms, nor related it otherwise
than as a drawn battle, with equal loss on either side; but on this
occasion, as soon as Pomponius the praetor had the intelligence, he
caused the people to assemble, and, without disguising or dissembling
the matter, told them plainly, "We are beaten, O Romans, in a great
battle; the consul Flaminius is killed; think, therefore, what is to be
done for your safety." Letting loose his news like a gale of wind upon
an open sea, he threw the city into utter confusion: in such
consternation, their thoughts found no support or stay. The danger at
hand at last awakened their judgments into a resolution to choose a
dictator, who, by the sovereign authority of his office and by his
personal wisdom and courage, might be able to manage the public affairs.
Their choice unanimously fell upon Fabius, whose character seemed equal
to the greatness of the office; whose age was so far advanced as to give
him experience, without taking from him the vigor of action; his body
could execute what his soul designed; and his temper was a happy
compound of confidence and cautiousness.
Fabius, being thus installed in the office of dictator, in the first
place gave the command of the horse to Lucius Minucius; and next asked
leave of the senate for himself, that in time of battle he might serve
on horseback, which by an ancient law amongst the Romans was forbid to
their generals; whether it were, that, placing their greatest strength
in their foot, they would have their commanders-in-chief posted amongst
them, or else to let them know, that, how great and absolute soever
their authority were, the people and senate were still their masters, of
whom they must ask leave. Fabius, however, to make the authority of his
charge more observable, and to render the people more submissive and
obedient to him, caused himself to be accompanied with the full body of
four and twenty lictors; and, when the surviving consul came to visit
him, sent him word to dismiss his lictors with their fasces, the ensigns
of authority, and appear before him as a private person.
The first solemn action of his dictatorship was very fitly a religious
one: an admonition to the people, that their late overthrow had not
befallen them through want of courage in their soldiers, but through the
neglect of divine ceremonies in the general. He therefore exhorted them
not to fear the enemy, but by extraordinary honor to propitiate the
gods. This he did, not to fill their minds with superstition, but by
religious feeling to raise their courage, and lessen their fear of the
enemy by inspiring the belief that Heaven was on their side. With this
view, the secret prophecies called the Sibylline Books were consulted;
sundry predictions found in them were said to refer to the fortunes and
events of the time; but none except the consulter was informed.
Presenting himself to the people, the dictator made a vow before them to
offer in sacrifice the whole product of the next season, all Italy over,
of the cows, goats, swine, sheep, both in the mountains and the plains;
and to celebrate musical festivities with an expenditure of the precise
sum of 333 sestertia and 333 denarii, with one third of a denarius over.
The sum total of which is, in our money, 83,583 drachmas and 2 obols.
What the mystery might be in that exact number is not easy to determine,
unless it were in honor of the perfection of the number three, as being
the first of odd numbers, the first that contains in itself
multiplication, with all other properties whatsoever belonging to
numbers in general.
In this manner Fabius having given the people better heart for the
future, by making them believe that the gods took their side, for his
own part placed his whole confidence in himself, believing that the gods
bestowed victory and good fortune by the instrumentality of valor and of
prudence; and thus prepared he set forth to oppose Hannibal, not with
intention to fight him, but with the purpose of wearing out and wasting
the vigor of his arms by lapse of time, of meeting his want of resources
by superior means, by large numbers the smallness of his forces. With
this design, he always encamped on the highest grounds, where the
enemy's horse could have no access to him. Still he kept pace with
them; when they marched he followed them, when they encamped he did the
same, but at such a distance as not to be compelled to an engagement,
and always keeping upon the hills, free from the insults of their horse;
by which means he gave them no rest, but kept them in a continual alarm.
But this his dilatory way gave occasion in his own camp for suspicion of
want of courage; and this opinion prevailed yet more in Hannibal's army.
Hannibal was himself the only man who was not deceived, who discerned
his skill and detected his tactics, and saw, unless he could by art or
force bring him to battle, that the Carthaginians, unable to use the
arms in which they were superior, and suffering the continual drain of