Why was George Washington called the American Fabio ? What does the expression "Fabian tactic" refer to? Where does the adjective fabian come from? applied to a nineteenth-century society antecedent of the British Labor Party? Who was nicknamed the Shield of Rome after Marco Claudio Marcelo became known as the Sword of Rome ? To answer all these questions, we must go back to the Second Punic War and focus on one of those special characters who starred in it, one of the main ones by the way, although he has remained somewhat in the shadow of Hannibal or Scipio, partly because of his opposition to the latter:Quinto Fabio Máximo.
Born around 280 BC, he descended from an important patrician family whose main representatives had been his grandfather, the three-time consul and first senator Quinto Fabio Máximo Gurges, and his great-grandfather Quinto Fabio Máximo Ruliano, who held the consulship five times and he became dictator; both heroes during the Samnite wars.
With such an ancestry it was sung that the political and military future of the young Fabio promised, despite the fact that, according to Plutarco, in childhood he was a slow learner and did not stand out for his charisma; something that the writer did not consider negative because he thought it could be positive for the formation of his personality.
Indeed, he was to reach adulthood and those qualities that had characterized him were refined:his tranquility became in the absence of low passions, his lack of dynamism in prudence, his indifference in a temperate character. Although he did not start the cursus honorum until 237 or 236 BC, he had already been consecrated as an augur almost three decades earlier, when he was a teenager, although there is not much information about those years and, in fact, it is unknown if he participated in the First Punic War.
It was after that contest that his name began to appear, first when he was appointed quaestor, then curule aedile and later, in 233 BC, consul, thanks to his victory over the Ligurians, with which the Senate also granted him a triumph (a parade from the Champ de Mars, through the Porta Triunfalis and on to the Temple of Jupiter, followed by a feast and other honours). Later he became censor and in 228 he resumed the consulate, a period in which he confronted Gaius Flaminius Nepos over the agrarian law that the latter promoted as a tribune of the plebs, intending to distribute the conquered lands to the Picenian Gauls (of the current Italian province of Rimini) among the plebeian families who were ruined in the war against Carthage.
This city would determine his career. Three years after being appointed dictator for the elections of the year 221 BC, and according to Tito Livio, he was part of an embassy sent to Carthage that demanded the taking of the Spanish city of Sagunto; as the claim was not satisfied, Fabio himself read a formal declaration of war before the Carthaginian senate (although Dión Casio says that it was not he but his cousin Marco Fabio Buteo). The fact is that this is how the Second Punic War began:recovered from the previous defeat and under the command of the Barca, Carthage began an expansion through the southern half of Hispania to compensate for the blow to the economy caused by the loss of Sicily. 
Aware of the danger, the Roman Republic was not willing to allow it. But in front of him was a military genius named Hannibal, who in a daring campaign crossed the Alps and the Apennines and brought hostilities to the Italian peninsula. In the first great battle, that of Trebia, he had defeated the consuls Tiberius Sempronius Longus and Publius Cornelius Scipio; in the next one, at Lake Trasimeno, he crushed Gaius Flaminius Nepos (Fabio's old enemy) and finished off the move with another victory at the Swamps of Plestia against Gnaeus Servilius Geminus. It was the year 217 and, given the dire situation, the Senate did something unusual:appoint Fabius dictator again.
As magister equitus (lieutenant and deputy) chose the former consul Marco Minucius Rufo, who was not resigned to being under the orders of the other -they were political rivals- and this would be fatal. Fabio attributed the situation to the neglect of the duties towards the gods, as indicated by some omens, so he had this oversight repaired by ordering the citizens to spend 333 sesterces and 333 denarii (3 was considered a perfect number) and tried to raise the morale of the Roman people through a colossal religious ceremony that included massive sacrifices of crops and animals that were distributed among the families of the fallen in Lake Trasimeno.
To great evils great remedies, and it is said that in that holocaust even a hundred children born in the votive period were sacrificed without even those of patrician origin being spared (although another interpretation says that they did not die but were selected for later). , on turning twenty, make a pilgrimage covered with a veil), apart from recovering the Etruscan tradition of watering the land of the founders of Rome with human blood, kept in a sanctuary called Mundus. It seems that the initiatives were successful and the people placed full trust in the new dictator.
Now, it was one thing to lift a flagging spirit and another to face Hannibal's fearsome army. Aware of his superiority, Fabio opted for a strategy of harassment and attrition, avoiding pitched battle. His troops were limited to harassing the Carthaginian contingents that were delayed or isolated with ambushes and small attacks that, together with the scorched earth tactic, continually annoyed the enemy and prevented them from supplying themselves. It was what would be called the Fabian tactic that, answering the questions from the beginning, George Washington applied during the American Revolution in the face of the superiority of the English army and that a variant of utopian socialism of the 19th century, the Fabian Society, also assumed in the sense of applying progressive and gradual reforms instead of of the revolutionary rupture.
That way of fighting did not please the Romans, who gave Fabius the derogatory agnomen (nickname) of Cunctactor , "The one who delays", which was added to others that he already had, such as Verrucosus (Warty, alluding to a wart on his upper lip) and Ovicula (Lamb, by his gentle ways.) Fabio managed to corner Hannibal in a valley but he did not attack him but preferred to try to render him hungry, although Hannibal managed to escape by breaking the fence with a herd of oxen to which he placed torches on their horns; It was the battle of Ager Falernus, which in Rome they considered a missed opportunity, gradually unleashing public opinion adverse to that concept of war delay. Of course, duly promoted by Marco Minutio, who veiledly accused his superior of being a coward and of deliberately prolonging the war to hold command.
It also didn't help that the agricultural fields of Campania were depredated by the invaders without doing anything to prevent it. That is why when Fabius was called to Rome, his magister equitus he saw the great opportunity. Disobeying the dictator's order, Minucius launched himself against some enemy units, putting them to flight; it was nothing more than a skirmish but in the capital the news was received with enthusiasm by the people... and with anger on the part of Fabio, who if he did not order the execution of his subordinate it was because he had important political support in one of the tribunes of the plebs, Marco Metilio, who got the Senate to name his friend co-dictator.
Knowing that his mate would self-destruct sooner or later, Fabio gave him half the army. And what had to happen in the battle of Geronium happened:Minucius attacked the Carthaginians head-on and gained meters without suspecting that he was getting into a trap in which Hannibal surrounded him thanks to troops that he had hidden in the irregularities of the terrain. There is no data on the casualties recorded by the legions but they were so heavy that Minucius, who was rescued in extremis by Fabio, he recognized his error and, owing his life to his superior, renounced the powers obtained by resuming the position of magister equitus .
Six months later the validity of the dictatorship expired and the supreme command returned to two consuls, Gnaeus Servilio Gémino and Marco Atilio Régulo, who were succeeded by Lucio Emilio Paulo and Gaius Terencio Varrón. They followed the line of Minucius and arguing that they feared the Roman votes more than Hannibal, attacked him openly at Cannae, suffering a resounding defeat:70,000 dead according to Polybius, 50,000 according to Titus Livy, plus 11,000 prisoners, figures that meant a catastrophe for the difficulty of making up for so many casualties. Ironically, that made everyone long for the much-maligned Cunctactor and his criticized Fabian tactic; After all, the Carthaginian general himself admired him for his cunning and because he paid the prisoners' ransom out of his own pocket.
Thus, Fabio, who had been named pontiff, was elected consul again along with Marco Claudio Marcelo and once again had to stop the collapse of morale by prohibiting anyone from leaving Rome, ordering that families with fallen in combat carry out the funeral honors in private and setting a limit of one month for mourning. Likewise, he walked the streets encouraging the citizens and assumed the nickname of Cunctator as title.
Of course, he returned to his delaying tactics, which stalled the operations of both sides except in the case of Tarentum, which he reconquered, earning another victory, and in Rome, which was saved due to the insufficiency of men and means of the troops. Carthaginians to carry out a siege and then defend the city if they took it.
This is how things stood in the year 209, when he reached the consulship for the fifth and last time. By then another charismatic figure was already beginning to emerge on the Roman side:a young man named Publius Cornelius Scipio, a patrician of illustrious descent who had taken part in the battle of Cannae, distinguishing himself by threatening to kill a group of notables who, in the gloomy panorama , they planned to leave the country and offer themselves as mercenaries abroad.
Scipio, who became curule aedile in 212, when he was not yet old enough, became very popular for having defeated Asdrúbal Barca, Hannibal's brother, in Hispania, recovering the peninsula for the Republic. This made him a political adversary of Fabio, whom he already saw as someone from another era and therefore the old Cunctator he opposed her plan to take the war to Africa in order to force the Carthaginian army to leave Italy in defense of the city from him. In the end there was a compromise decision:Scipio would attack Carthage but with limited troops, so that Rome would not be left defenseless.
The fact is that, in fact, Hannibal embarked to help his family in the year 203 BC. Fabio could not see him because he had died shortly before and, therefore, it would be Scipio who defeated Barca in Zama and who took the credit for winning the Second Punic War, earning the nickname the African . But Fabius earned the honorary title of Shield of Rome . As expressive as perfectly adjusted to reality.