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The ''gens Fabia'' was one of the most ancient patrician families at Rome. The ''gens'' played a prominent part in history soon after the establishment of the Republic, and three brothers were invested with seven successive consulships, from 485 to 479 BC, thereby cementing the high repute of the family.〔Livy, ''Ab urbe condita'', 2.42〕 The house derived its greatest lustre from the patriotic courage and tragic fate of the 306 Fabii in the Battle of the Cremera, 477 BC. But the Fabii were not distinguished as warriors alone; several members of the gens were also important in the history of Roman literature and the arts.〔''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', William Smith, Editor.〕 ==Background== The family is generally thought to have been counted amongst the ''gentes maiores'', the most prominent of the patrician houses at Rome, together with the Aemilii, Claudii, Cornelii, Manlii, and Valerii; but no list of the ''gentes maiores'' has survived, and even the number of families so designated is a complete mystery. Until 480 BC, the Fabii were staunch supporters of the aristocratic policies favoring the patricians and the senate against the plebs. However, following a great battle that year against the Veientes, in which victory was achieved only by cooperation between the generals and their soldiers, the Fabii aligned themselves with the people. Throughout the history of the Republic, they were frequently allied with other prominent families against the Claudii, the proudest and most aristocratic of all Roman gentes, and the champions of the established order.〔Titus Livius, ''Ab Urbe Condita'', ii. 46, 47.〕〔Dionysius of Halicarnassus, ''Romaike Archaiologia'', ix. 11, 13.〕 The most famous legend of the Fabii asserts that, following the last of the seven consecutive consulships in 479 BC, the gens undertook the war with Veii as a private obligation. A militia consisting of over three hundred men of the gens, together with their friends and clients, amounting to a total of some four thousand men, took up arms and stationed itself on a hill overlooking the Cremera, a little river between Rome and Veii. The cause of this secession is said to have been the enmity between the Fabii and the patricians, who regarded them as traitors for advocating the causes of the plebeians. The Fabian militia remained in their camp on the Cremera for two years, successfully opposing the Veientes, until at last they were lured into an ambush, and destroyed.〔Titus Livius, ''Ab Urbe Condita'', ii. 48-50.〕〔Dionysius of Halicarnassus, ''Romaike Archaiologia'', ix. 15-23.〕 Three hundred and six Fabii of fighting age were said to have perished in the disaster, leaving only a single survivor to return home. By some accounts he was the only survivor of the entire gens; but it seems unlikely that the camp of the Fabii included not only all of the men, but the women and children of the family as well. They and the elders of the gens probably remained at Rome. The day on which the Fabii perished was forever remembered, as it was the same day that the Gauls defeated the Roman army at the Battle of the Allia in 390 BC. This was the fifteenth day before the kalends of Sextilis, or July 18, according to the modern calendar.〔Titus Livius, ''Ab Urbe Condita'', ii. 50, vi. 1.〕〔Dionysius of Halicarnassus, ''Romaike Archaiologia'', ix. 22.〕〔Publius Ovidius Naso, ''Fasti'', ii. 237.〕〔Plutarchus, ''Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans'', "Camillus", 19.〕〔Publius Cornelius Tacitus, ''Historiae'', ii. 91.〕〔Barthold Georg Niebuhr, ''History of Rome'', vol. ii. p. 194.〕 The name of the Fabii was associated with one of the two colleges of the ''Luperci'', the priests who carried on the sacred rites of the ancient religious festival of the Lupercalia. The other college bore the name of the Quinctilii, suggesting that in the earliest times these two gentes superintended these rites as a ''sacrum gentilicum'', much as the Pinarii and Potitii maintained the worship of Hercules. Such sacred rites were gradually transferred to the state, or opened to the Roman ''populus;'' a well-known legend attributed the destruction of the Potitii to the abandonment of its religious office. In later times the privilege of the Lupercalia had ceased to be confined to the Fabii and the Quinctilii.〔〔Marcus Tullius Cicero, ''Philippicae'', ii. 34, xiii. 15, ''Pro Caelio'', 26.〕〔Sextus Aurelius Propertius, ''Elegies'', iv. 26.〕〔Plutarchus, ''Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans'', "Caesar", 61.〕 One of the thirty-five voting ''tribes'' into which the Roman people were divided was named after the Fabii; several tribes were named after important gentes, including the tribes ''Aemilia, Claudia, Cornelia, Fabia, Papiria, Publilia, Sergia'', and ''Veturia''. Several of the others appear to have been named after lesser families.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fabia (gens)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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