an illustrious family of ancient Rome, who from the time when they first began to make a figure in history, B.C. 486, till the reign of Tiberius, counted among their honours seven dictatorships, forty-eight consulships, eight censorships, and seven aurgurships, besides many inferior dignities. In the early times of the republic, it was an honourable distinction in the history of this family, that from 486 to 479 B.C. one of the two consuls was a member of the Fabian house. In that latter year the whole family to the number of 306 left the city, with the intention of taking the war with the Vejentes into their own hands, and settled with their households on the banks of the river Cremera, where they maintained themselves successfully against the enemy for two years. At the end of that period, however, they fell into an ambuscade and were cut off to a man. The only representative of the family at this time surviving was a youth, who, from his tender years, had been left at Rome. He became the ancestor of all the Fabii whose names are afterwards met with in Roman history, of whom the most distinguished were M. Fabius Ambustus, consul in the year of Rome 393, and afterwards re-elected for several successive years; his son Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus, master of the horse under the Dictator Papirius, in whose absence, and contrary to whose orders, he fought a great battle with the Samnites whom he utterly defeated, but though victorious he made a very narrow escape with his life in consequence of having disobeyed the orders of the commander-in-chief, whom he had deprived of the opportunity of distinguishing himself. But the greatest of the Fabian family, and indeed one of the greatest of all the Romans of the Commonwealth, was Q. Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, the successful opponent of Hannibal in the second Punic war.