The Rise of Rome (Penguin Classics)

by Plutarch

  Which is not to say that Plutarch did not read widely. He found pertinent information in Cicero’s On Old Age. He also exploited collections of the sayings of famous men (chs. 8, 20, 23, 24) as well as authors of exemplary literature, such as Valerius Maximus, whom he possibly exploits in this Life (and whom he cites elsewhere).21 It is possible, even likely, that Cornelius Nepos wrote a (now lost) biography of Fabius, and, even if Plutarch never mentions them, there were family studies at his disposal – Pomponius Atticus, Cicero’s great friend, composed a history of the Fabii Maximi,22 although it is perhaps significant that Plutarch tells us almost nothing of Fabius’ career before the Hannibalic War.

  Life of Fabius Maximus

  [c. 275–203 BC]

  1. Such was the man Pericles proved himself to be in his most memorable actions as they have come down to us.1 Now let us turn our narrative to Fabius.

  It was a nymph, according to one legend, or a woman of the country according to another, who lay with Hercules by the River Tiber and bore him Fabius. This man was the founder of the family of the Fabii, which was to become one of the greatest and most distinguished in Rome. Another tradition has it that the original members of the family were called Fodii in ancient times, because of their practice of trapping wild beasts in pits – and even up to the present day ditches are known in Latin as fossae, and fodere is the Latin verb meaning to dig. Then, in the course of time and through the change of two letters, according to this theory, they became known as Fabii.2 At any rate, this family produced a large number of eminent men, the greatest of whom was Rullus, who for this reason was given the surname of Maximus.3 The fourth in descent from him was the Fabius who is the subject of this Life.4

  He was nicknamed Verrucosus because of a physical peculiarity, a small wart5 which grew on his upper lip, and while he was still a child people called him Ovicula6 or lambkin, because of his grave and gentle nature. He grew up with a quiet and placid disposition, showed an extraordinary caution even when he was indulging in childish pleasures, and learned his lessons slowly and laboriously; and these characteristics, combined with his docile, almost submissive, behaviour towards his companions, led those who did not know him thoroughly to suppose that he was dull and stupid. It was only a few who could see beyond these superficial qualities and discern the greatness of spirit, the lion-like temper and the unshakeable resolution which lay in the depths of his soul. But as time went on and his mind was stirred by the demands of the life of action, he soon proved to all alike that this apparent lack of energy was really due to his freedom from over-mastering passions, and that his caution proceeded from a soundly based judgement, while the fact that he never acted on impulse and was not easily persuaded meant that he was steadfast and resolute in all circumstances.7

  He took note early in life both of the greatness of Rome’s power and of the numerous wars that threatened it, and so he trained his body for fighting, since he considered its fitness to be his natural armour. At the same time, he practised public speaking as an instrument with which to sway the people, and created a style which was the perfect expression of his way of life. His oratory carried no superfluous ornaments or empty mannerisms, but it was full of the solid sense which characterized the man, and was reinforced by an abundance of maxims and generalizations which recalled the weighty judgements of Thucydides. One of his speeches has actually been preserved: he delivered it as a funeral oration over his son, who died after he had held the office of consul.8

  2. In the first of his five consulships Fabius won a triumph over the Ligurians.9 He won a pitched battle, inflicting heavy losses on them, whereupon they withdrew into the Alps and ceased to ravage and plunder the Italian provinces that lay on their frontier. Then Hannibal broke into Italy, won his first victory at the battle of the River Trebia10 and pressed on through Etruria, ravaging the countryside as he went. The inhabitants of Rome were filled with terror and dismay at the news of his advance and a number of portents were observed, some of them commonplace enough, such as peals of thunder, but others were as inexplicable as they were unfamiliar. Thus it was reported that shields began to sweat blood, that at Antium11 the ripe grain bled when cut by reapers, that blazing red-hot stones rained down from the sky, and that at Falerii12 the heavens were seen to open and many tablets to fall, one of which was inscribed with the words Mars is brandishing his weapons.

  However, none of these prodigies could daunt the consul Gaius Flaminius, who, besides being an ambitious and hot-tempered man, had been encouraged by the victories which he had won against all expectation only a few years before.13 On that occasion, although the senate had disagreed with his plan, and his colleague had vehemently opposed it, he had engaged the Gauls in a pitched battle and defeated them. Fabius himself was not much disturbed by those portents which alarmed so many of his countrymen, because he considered them incoherent and lacking in meaning. He was much more impressed by the reports of the small size of Hannibal’s force and of how poorly it was supplied, and he urged the Romans to have patience and on no account to engage a commander who led an army that had been hardened in many contests for the very purpose of forcing a decisive battle. Instead, they should send help to their allies, keep their subject cities under control and allow Hannibal’s strength, which must now be at its peak, to waste away like a flame that flares up brightly but has little fuel to sustain it.

  3. But Flaminius refused to listen to these arguments. He declared that he would not allow the campaign to be conducted near Rome, nor would he, like Camillus of old, fight a battle for a city within her very walls,14 and he therefore gave orders to the military tribunes to lead out the army. But as he leapt on his horse, the animal, for no apparent reason, was seized with a fit of trembling and shied violently, so that Flaminius was unseated and thrown to the ground on his head.15 Even this did nothing to divert him from his purpose: he proceeded to march out to meet Hannibal according to his original plan, and drew up his army near Lake Trasimene in Etruria.16

  When the two armies were locked in battle, at the critical moment in the action, an earthquake took place which destroyed several cities, diverted rivers from their channels and split off great fragments of cliffs, and yet in spite of the violence of the catastrophe none of those who were engaged in the battle noticed it at all. Flaminius himself fought with heroic strength and courage, but was cut down at last, and around him perished the flower of his army. The rest were routed and a tremendous carnage followed. Fifteen thousand Romans were killed and as many more taken prisoner. Hannibal was anxious to bury Flaminius’ body with military honours as a tribute to his valour, but it could not be found, and it was never discovered how it had disappeared.

  Now, when the Romans had been defeated in the first action of the campaign at the River Trebia, neither the general who wrote the dispatch nor the messenger who carried it gave a straightforward account of the battle: it was represented as being a disputed and uncertain victory. But as soon as Pomponius17 the praetor learned of this second defeat, he summoned an assembly of the people, faced them and gave them the news in plain words, without any attempt to evade or disguise it. ‘Men of Rome,’ he said, ‘we have been defeated in a great battle, our army has been destroyed and the consul Flaminius is dead. You must consider now what we are to do to save ourselves.’ His speech fell upon the great expanse of faces turned towards him like a sudden storm-blast on the surface of the sea. The whole city was thrown into an uproar, and in such a mood of panic no man could take a grip on his thoughts and reflect calmly. But at length the people found themselves driven to the same conclusion, namely, that the situation demanded the absolute authority of a single man (or, as the Romans call it, a dictatorship), who would wield this power with the utmost energy and without fear, and that Fabius Maximus was the only man fitted for this task. He alone, they believed, possessed a spirit and a dignity of character which were equal to the greatness of the office, and besides this, he was of an age at which the strength of the body is fully capable of
executing the decisions of the mind, while boldness is tempered with discretion.

  4. Accordingly, the people passed a decree to this effect and Fabius was declared dictator. He in turn appointed Marcus Minucius18 to be his master of the horse, and then at once asked the senate’s permission to use a horse19 while he himself was on active service. I should explain that according to an ancient law the dictator was forbidden this privilege. The reason may have been that since the army had always been organized so that its main strength lay in the infantry, the Romans believed that their commander should always station himself with the phalanx and never leave it, or possibly that since the dictator’s power is in other respects as great as a tyrant’s, they considered that in this detail at least he should be shown to be dependent on the people. At any rate, Fabius was anxious to impress the people immediately with the importance and grandeur of his office, so as to make them more docile and obedient to his orders. He therefore appeared in public attended by the full body of twenty-four lictors20 carrying their fasces. And when the surviving consul came to meet him, he sent an officer with orders that he should dismiss his lictors, lay down the insignia of his office and meet the dictator as a private citizen.21

  After this he made the best of beginnings, that is by turning his attention to religious matters, and he left the people in no doubt that their defeat had not been brought about by any cowardice on the part of their soldiers, but by their general’s neglectful and contemptuous attitude towards religious observances. By this means he persuaded them that instead of becoming frightened of their enemies they should give their minds to honouring and propitiating the gods. He did not attempt to implant a spirit of superstition, but he invoked the people’s piety to strengthen their courage, and he sought to dispel their fear of the enemy by instilling the faith that the gods were on the side of Rome. At the same time many of the so-called Sibylline Books,22 which contain secret advice of great importance to the state, were brought out to be consulted, and it is said that some of the oracular pronouncements they contained actually corresponded to the chance happenings and events of the time.

  What was discovered in this way could not be made public, but the dictator came before the people and made a vow in their presence to sacrifice to the gods a whole year’s increase, that is, all the young produced in the coming spring by the goats, pigs, sheep and cattle from every mountain, plain, river and meadow within the bounds of Italy.23 He also pledged himself to celebrate a musical and dramatic festival,24 and spend on it the sum of 333 sestertia, 333 denarii and a third of a denarius exactly. This sum in Greek money amounts to 83,583 drachmas and two obols.25 It is difficult to discover the reason why this precise amount was specified, unless it was perhaps to honour the spiritual nature of the number three: this is a perfect number by nature, and is also the first of odd numbers, the beginning of quantity, and contains within itself the first differences and the elements of every number.26

  5. By encouraging the people in this way to fix their thoughts upon religious matters, Fabius contrived to strengthen their confidence in the future. For his part, however, he trusted entirely to his own efforts to win the victory, since he believed that the gods grant men success according to the courage and wisdom that they display, and in this frame of mind he turned his attention to Hannibal. He was determined not to fight a pitched battle, and since he had time and manpower and money on his side, his plan was to exhaust his opponent’s strength, and gradually to wear down his small army and meagre resources. With this object in view he always bivouacked in mountainous country, where he was out of reach of the enemy’s cavalry, and at the same time hung menacingly over the Carthaginian camp. If the enemy stayed still, he did the same. If they moved, he would make a detour, descend a little distance from the heights and show himself just far enough away to prevent himself from being forced into an action against his will, yet near enough to create the suspicion, from the very slowness of his movements, that he might be about to attack.

  But the Romans soon became contemptuous of these time-killing tactics and Fabius began to be despised in his own camp, while the enemy – with one exception – were convinced that he was a nonentity who was utterly devoid of warlike spirit. The exception was Hannibal. He, and he alone, perceived his opponent’s shrewdness and understood the strategy which Fabius had laid down for the war. He therefore made up his mind that he must use every trick to lure or force the enemy into battle, or else the Carthaginian cause was lost, since his men were being prevented from exploiting their superiority in training, while their manpower and resources, in which they were inferior to the Romans, were being steadily exhausted to no purpose. And so he brought into play all the arts and stratagems of war and tried every one in turn, like a skilful wrestler who watches for his first opportunity to secure a hold on his adversary. First he would attack Fabius’ army directly, then try and throw it into confusion, then draw him from one place to another, all in the effort to lure him away from the safety of his defensive tactics.

  Fabius, however, had complete faith in his plan, followed it consistently and refused to be drawn. But he was provoked by his master of the horse, Minucius, a headstrong officer who longed for action regardless of the circumstances, and who tried to increase his popularity by raising empty hopes and working up his men’s spirits to a state of wild enthusiasm. The soldiers mocked at Fabius and contemptuously called him Hannibal’s pedagogue,27 but they thought Minucius a great man and a general worthy of Rome. This encouraged the master of the horse to indulge his boastful tactics more than ever and to make fun of Fabius’ tactics of encamping on high ground, where, as he put it, the dictator took great trouble to provide them with splendid seats to witness the spectacle of Italy being laid waste with fire and sword. He was also fond of asking Fabius’ friends whether he thought he was leading the troops up to heaven, since he had evidently ceased to take any interest in events on earth, or whether he was enveloping them in clouds and mist simply to escape from the enemy. Fabius’ friends reported these remarks, and urged him to wipe out such aspersions on his courage by risking a battle. His answer was: ‘In that case I should be an even greater coward than they say I am, if I were to abandon the plans I believe to be right because of a few sneers and words of abuse. There is nothing shameful in experiencing fear for your country’s sake. But the man who allows himself to be frightened by the opinions of others, or by their slanders or abuse, proves that he is unworthy of such a high office as this, since he makes himself the slave of the very men whom it is his duty to restrain and overrule when they go astray and their judgement deserts them.’

  6. Not long after this Hannibal committed a serious blunder. He wished to put some distance between Fabius’ army and his own, and to occupy a stretch of open country where he could find good pasturage. He therefore gave orders to his guides that, immediately after the evening meal, they should lead the army into the district of Casinum.28 But they did not take the name correctly because of his foreign pronunciation, with the result that they hurried on his troops to the outskirts of Campania and into the neighbourhood of Casilinum,29 through the midst of which flows the River Olthornus, which the Romans call Vulturnus.30 The whole region is surrounded by mountains, but there is a narrow defile which leads down to the sea. Here the river overflows so as to form marshes and high sand dunes, and finally discharges itself into the sea on a beach, where there is no anchorage because of the heavy breakers. While Hannibal was marching down into this valley, Fabius took advantage of his knowledge of the roads to send his troops round and block the pass with a detachment of 4,000 infantry. He posted the rest of his army in a strong position on the neighbouring heights, and then with the lightest and most active of his troops attacked the Carthaginian rearguard, killed about 800 of them and threw the whole army into disorder. Hannibal quickly recognized his mistake and the danger of his position and crucified the guides who had led him there, but he could see no means of forcing his way out or dislodging the enemy from the
mountain passes which they held so securely. At last, when his men were beginning to lose heart and sink into despair because they believed they were surrounded on all sides by dangers from which there was no escape, he hit upon a trick to deceive the enemy. This is what he did.

  He gave orders for his troops to take some 2,000 of the oxen which they had captured, and to fasten to each of their horns a torch consisting of a bundle of twigs or dry faggots. Then, after nightfall, at a given signal his men were to light the torches and drive the cattle along the defiles and towards the passes where the Romans were posted. As soon as these orders had been carried out, by which time it was already dark, he had the rest of his army ready to move, and proceeded to advance at a slow pace. At first, so long as the flames were low and only burning the wood, the cattle moved on steadily towards the mountains as they were being driven up the slopes, while the shepherds and herdsmen who looked down from the neighbouring heights stared with amazement at the flames which streamed from their horns and imagined that this must be a whole army marching in close column and carrying innumerable torches. But when the horns had been burned down to the quick and the flames reached the raw flesh, the cattle began to shake and toss their heads in agony and covered one another with showers of sparks and embers. Soon they began to stampede, and then, mad with pain and fear, galloped off on a wild career down the slopes, with their foreheads and tails ablaze and setting fire to a great part of the forest as they passed. All this was a terrifying sight to the Romans guarding the passes. The flames appeared to come from numbers of men running to and fro and brandishing torches in their hands, and the Romans were thrown into the utmost confusion and alarm, since they believed that they were completely surrounded and that the enemy were about to attack from all directions at once. Their courage deserted them and they fled from their posts, fell back on the main body of the army, which was stationed on the heights, and abandoned the defiles. In a moment Hannibal’s light troops came up and seized the passes, and the rest of the Carthaginian army marched safely through, heavily loaded with plunder.