Fabius Maximus in Control

Fabius's career

a. Before Hannibal

Fabius was a powerful patrician senator, with all the political influence of the Fabii behind him:.
• He was Consul in 233bc (when he was given a triumph for a victory against the Gauls in Liguria) an again in 228bc.
• He was appointed Dictator in 221bc, but resigned when a mouse squeaked during in the middle of a sacrifice.
• In 220bc, when the Saguntines appealed to Rome for help against Hannibal, Fabius opposed the call for immediate war, and instead proposed a fact-finding mission.
• In 218bc, he was one of the ambassadors who went to Carthage to demand the arrest of Hannibal, and it was his kinsman, Fabius Buteo, who made the declaration of war.
• Already Chief Augur (from 265bc?), he was appointed Pontifex in 216bc.

b. Dictator, 217bc

• Fabius was NOT one of the commanders appointed at the beginning of the war - he lost out to the Scipios.
• After the defeat of Flaminius at Trasimene, Fabius was appointed Dictator (or strictly, as Livy points out, pro-Dictator, since only a Consul could appoint a Dictator, and Sempronius was still alive).
• As Dictator, he began his term of office by consulting the Sibylline Books, and building a Temple to Venus Erycina.
• Militarily, he instituted his famous 'Fabian Strategy'.
• He was opposed and mocked by his Master of Horse Minucius (a political ally of the Scipios).
• At Ager Falernus - although he had Hannibal trapped - he allowed him use a simple trick (burning torches on the horns of a herd of cattle) to escape ... perhaps fearing a double-bluff trick.
• This was the last straw foran impatient Senate, who forced him to accept Minucius as his equal. Although Minucius after a military disaster) accepted Fabius's wisdom, both of them resigned soon afterwards.

c. Period of domination, 216-2??bc

• Fabius demanded that an Interrex be appointed to organise the election of 216bc (hoping to get one of his allies into power).
• However, he could not stop Varro's election, and Livy includes a story of Fabius urging Varro's co-consul Paullus Aemilius 'to dread Varro as much as Hannibal'.
• After Cannae, although neither Dictator nor Consul, Fabius took control.  He walked the streets calming the people, and placed guards on the gates of Rome.  As Pontifex, he forbade public mourning (to prevent panic) and cancelled the Festival of Ceres.  He put to death a Vestal Virgin who had sinned, and sacrificed four Gauls.
• In 216bc also, he organised it for his kinsman, Fabius Buteo, to appoint new senators to the places of those killed at Cannae (i.e. he packed the Senate with his supporters).
• In 215bc and 214bc he was elected Consul.
• In 213bc his son was elected consul (with Fabious serving as his Legate).
• In 209bc he was elected Consul and also Princeps Senatus (Leader of the Senate) 209-203bc.
• In 209bc he captured Tarentum by a trick and was awarded a triumph.

d. Failing Influence

• In 205bc, Scipio - returning as a victorius war-hero from Spain - was elected Consul in a record-breaking election; however, by a speech in the Senate, Fabius was able to prevent the Senate naming Africa as his province (i.e. sanctioning an attack on Africa) and instead restricted him to Sicily.
• In 204bc, as Scipio prepared to invade Africa, Fabius proposed that he be recalled and releived of his command ... but he was overruled, and the invasion was sanctioned.
• Fabius died in 203bc.

Fabian Strategy 

a. Avoiding open battle

• Polybius: 'Fabius had decided that he would avoid any direct confrontation and take no risks. His main objective was to ensure the safety of the troops under his command and he stuck rigidly to his decision.'
• At Ager Falernus he refused to attack Hannibal, even though he had him trapped.
• After Minucius's successful attack at Gereonium, Fabius demanded that he be charged with misconduct.

b. Stick to the hills

• i.e. where Hannibal could not deploy his cavalry.
• Livy: 'Fabius kept on high ground, at a moderate distance from the enemy, so that he never lost sight of him and never closed with him'.
• Minucius mocked him for this, asking: 'Is he taking his army up to heaven ... or is he just sneaking away from the enemy under cover of mist and cloud?'

c. Constant surveillance

• Plutarch: 'So [Fabius] kept his army on the higher ground, always camping among the hills from where he could keep an eye on Hannibal, while staying well away from his cavalry'.
• NB Hannibal used this against Fabius, destroying all the land round about with impunity ... EXCEPT Fabius's fields (which made people suspect he had struck a deal with Fabius).

d. A War of Attrition

• Livy: 'He refused to stake everything on a general engagement, whilst slight encounters, fought on safe ground with a retreat close at hand, encouraged his men, who had been demoralised by their previous defeats, and made them less dissatisfied with their own courage and fortunes.'

e. Stopping Hannibal getting reinforcements

• Hanno raised troops in Italy, but the Romans intercepted and destroyed his army in the Battle of Beneventum (214bc) befire he could reach Hannibal.
• In 207bc, Gaius Claudius Nero defeated Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal – who had marched another army from Spain over the Alps – at the Battle of the Metaurus.
• In 205bc, Mago landed in Italy, but was defeated in the Po Valley Raid (203 bc), in which he sustained the wound which eventually killed him.

Fabian Strategy: Successes 

a. The Roman army survived and improved

• Livy: 'Meanwhile in Italy the skilful delaying tactics of Fabius had achieved a brief respite from the non-stop run of Roman military disasters.'
• Refusing a pitched battle, but engaging in raids, trained and improved the morale of the new Roman recruits.

b. The Romans gradually regained ground

• They held Nola (216-214bc), then took Capua (211) and Tarentum (209).
• By 207bc (Battle of Grumentum) the Roman Army was good enough to hold Hannibal in the field.

c. Carthaginian morale fell

• Livy: 'All this was a considerable source of anxiety to Hannibal, who realised that at last the Romans had chosen a master of military strategy'.
• Plutarch: '[Hannibal] alone understood his opponent’s strategy and realised how intelligently he applied it. He realised that ... the Carthaginians would be done for, unable to use the weaponry in which they were superior, while steadily losing their already inferior manpower and wasting their inadequate resources with nothing to show for it. '

d. A War of Attrition

• Polybius: '[Fabius] turned to those factors which he calculated worked to the advantage of the Romans, exploited them to the exclusion of all else, and based his whole campaign strategy upon them. For the Romans these advantages were: limitless supplies and inexhaustible manpower.'

e. He stopped Hannibal getting reinforcements

• Hanno raised troops in Italy, but the Romans intercepted and destroyed his army in the Battle of Beneventum (214bc) befire he could reach Hannibal.
• In 207bc, Gaius Claudius Nero defeated Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal – who had marched another army from Spain over the Alps – at the Battle of the Metaurus.
• In 205bc, Mago landed in Italy, but was defeated in the Po Valley Raid (203 bc), in which he sustained the wound which eventually killed him.

Fabian Strategy: Negatives 

a. No Visible Victory

• This created dis-satisfaction at home, and eventually led to Fabius's dismissal as Dictator.
• Although he gave himself a Triumph for it, the capture of Tarentum was a measly success compared, say, to Scipio's victories in Spain.
• Not giving battle does not win wars.

b. Scorched Earth

Fabius sat back and watched while Hannibal destroyed Italy.  Burning the crops led to food shortages, especially in Rome. Huge areas of southern Italy were devastated and permanently ruined (writing in 1965, the historian Arnold Toynbee believed that southern Italy had STILL not recovered).

c. The Role of Religion

• In 217bc, Fabius's religious fanaticism ledhim to order a whole string of religious ceremonies and tributes ... before turning to the recruitment of new armies.
In 215bc, he failed to go to relieve his fellow consul, Gracchus Sempronius, beseiged by Hannibal in Cumae, because ‘his attention was occupied first with taking fresh auspices and then with the portents which were being announced one after another, and which the soothsayers assured him would be very difficult to avert’.
• This may have improved civilian morale, but it was sterile or harmful as a military strategy.

d. Hanibal and his Allies

Fabius's 'delaying' Strategy is credited with giving the Roman Army a breathing space to recover; at the same time, however, it gave Hannibal time to build his Italian League (Arpi, Capua, Bruttium etc) and create an effective supply base which enabled him to maintain himself in Italy for 16 years.

e. The Constitutional Cost

• Fabius USED the war to steal political power and influence from the Scipios, and from the plebs
• He had himself illegally appointed Dictator.
• He used Fabius Buteo to pack the Senate with his supporters
• In 215bc he used his religious influence to get Marcellus de-selected as Consul and himself appointed instead

Fabius's Relationship with the Roman Government 

NB - to a certain extent, for most of the war, Fabius WAS the government!

a. Political Influence

• Fabius was head of the powerful Fabii Clan
• He was appointed Dictator in 217bc; in this capacity he had absolute control of strategy and government.
• In 216bc his kinsman Fabius Buteo packed the Senate in his favour; this gave him power to influence the budget, laws, decisions and appointments
• He was Princeps Senatus 209-203bc; in this capacity he was able until 204bc to persuade the Senate to oppose Scipio.
• He was cynical and ruthless in getting and maintaining power.

b. Military Influence

• He was appointed Consul in 215, 214 and 209bc (and his son was Consul in 213bc); in this capacity he had absolute control of two Roman Legions.

c. Religious Influence

• He was Chief Augur for 62 years; in this capacity he was able to get Marcellus de-selected as Consul in 215bc.
• He was appointed Pontifex (Priest) in 216bc; in this capacity he was able to prevent public mourning destroying morale, and to use the auguries to control military strategy (e.g. as when he refused to go to help Gracchus Sempronius in 215bc)

d. Propaganda

• He awarded himself a Triumph in 209bc = publicity and public glory
• The leading historian of the Second Punic War was his kinsman Fabius Pictor, who manipulated the facts to justify Fabius's actions; Fabius Pictor's account became the bases for Livy's and many succeeding histories • Roman historians manipulated their accounts of his actions to make him into the perfect example of Roman virtue, and of the Roman proverb Romanus sedendo vincit ('The Roman conquers by sitting still').

e. Failures

• He failed to persuade the Senate to punish Minucius in 217bc, and instead was dismissed as Dictator - a 'calculated insult' (Livy)
• He failed to persuade Paullus Aemilius to stop Varro at Cannae in 216bc
• He failed to persuade the Senate to dismiss Scipio in 204bc
• His achievements came at considerable constitutional cost; nowadays we would regard him as more like a Mafia godfather than a legitimate leader.