Quintus Fabius Maximus

Biography

Quintus Fabius Maximus was appointed dictator after the disaster at Trasimene in 217 BC, when Rome faced an undefeated Hannibal moving freely through Italy with no Roman army capable of stopping him. Fabius chose a strategy his contemporaries called cowardice: shadow Hannibal's army, cut off foragers, seize supply columns, but never offer pitched battle. He earned the contempt-laden nickname 'Cunctator' — the Delayer — from Romans who watched their farmland burned while their dictator stood on hilltops doing nothing. Fabius was right. Hannibal, far from home and unable to receive adequate reinforcements, depended on plunder and ally defections for supplies. Without pitched battle, he could not force Rome to negotiate. Every day the Fabian strategy held was a day closer to Hannibal's army wasting away. But democracy overrode strategy: Fabius's term as dictator expired; the assembly elected Varro and Paullus as consuls with a mandate to fight; the result was Cannae, Rome's worst defeat. After Cannae, Fabius's strategy was finally adopted permanently. 'The Shield of Rome' — the old man's derisive nickname reclaimed as a title of honour — proved correct about everything. He died in 203 BC, just before Scipio's final victory, having outlived his critics and seen his strategy vindicated by the greatest reversal in Roman military history.