FABIUS PICTOR, the father of Roman history, respecting whom we know but little. In the interval between the first and second Punic wars we find him taking an active part in the subjugation of the Gauls in the north of Italy (225 B. C.); and after the battle of Cannæ (216 B. C.), he was employed by the Romans to proceed to Delphi, in order to consult the oracle of Apollo. But it is as an historian that he is entitled to our attention; as the earliest of the Roman annalists who set the example of writing the history of his country in prose. The rude muse of Nævius had already celebrated in verse the glory acquired by the Roman arms in the first Punic war, and Ennius had clothed the annals of his adopted country in the language of poetry. The sources from which Fabius derived his history were no doubt the annals of the pontiffs, who were in the habit of noting on a tablet the remarkable events of each year, such as prodigies, eclipses, cam-
paigns, triumphs, and the deaths of illustrious men; and these were afterwards collected into a book. This custom continued till the pontificate of P. Mucius and the times of the Gracchi. Such was the foundation for his history; and his style seems to have partaken much of the dry and jejune character of the memoirs which he copied. Polybius has expressed a doubt respecting their credibility, but, we think, without sufficient reason. That he should have copied from a Greek writer, Diocles of Alexandria, as Dionysius hints, carries with it its own refutation; but it is a curious fact that he wrote his annals in the Greek as well as Latin language. To what period he brought down his history we are unable to determine. Livy speaks of his death 169 B. C. (Moller Diss. de Q. Fabio Pictore, Altorf, 1689; Lachman, De Fontib. Livii; Fabric. Bibl. Lat.)