Caeso Fabius Vibulanus (consul)

Caeso Fabius Vibulanus was consul of the Roman republic in 484, 481, and 479 BC.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]} He had earlier held the office of quaestor parricidii in 485 BC in connection with the trial and execution of Spurius Cassius Viscellinus.^[12]

His brothers were Quintus (consul in 485 and 482 BC) and Marcus (consul in 483 and 480 BC).

According to Livy, the plebs disliked the name of the Fabii on account of Caeso's brother Quintus who, as consul in 485 BC, had incurred the anger of the plebs by lodging the spoils of a victory with the publicum. However, Livy says, the senate succeeded in having Caeso elected in 484 BC notwithstanding. His election in that year stirred up the anger of the plebs even further. In that year Caeso and his colleague Lucius Aemilius Mamercus worked with the senate to oppose increases to the powers of the tribunes.^[13]

During Fabius' second consulship in 481 BC Fabius was given command of an army against the Aequi, who had laid siege to the Latin town of Ortona. Fabius and his army met the Aequi in battle, and routed them solely by a cavalry charge. However, due to popular discontent amongst the Roman army, both with the patricians and with Fabius himself, the Roman infantry refused to pursue the enemy. Fabius exhorted them to attack the fleeing enemy, but they refused, and returned to camp. Nevertheless Fabius and the army returned to Rome victorious.^[14]

According to Roman historical tradition, all of the male members of the gens Fabia except one perished in the Battle of the Cremera in 477 BC. If this tradition is correct, then Caeso died that year in the disaster.^[15]

See also

• Fabia (gens)

References

1. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, ii. 41-43, 46, 47-50.
2. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Romaike Archaiologia, 8.77ff, 82-86; 9.1ff, 11, 13-22.
3. Joannes Zonaras, Epitome Historiarum, vii. 17.
4. Valerius Maximus, Factorum ac Dictorum Memorabilium libri IX, ix. 3. § 5.
5. Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, xvii. 21.
6. Publius Ovidius Naso, Fasti, ii. 195ff
7. Cassius Dio, Roman History, fragment no. 26, ed. Reim.
8. Sextus Pompeius Festus, epitome of Marcus Verrius Flaccus De Verborum Significatu, s. v. Scerlerata porta.
9. Barthold Georg Niebuhr, History of Rome, vol. ii. pp. 177ff
10. Karl Wilhelm Göttling, Geschichte der Römische Staatsverfassung (1840), p. 308.
11. Becker, Handbuch der Römischen Alterhümer, vol. ii. part ii. p. 93.
12. Livy, 2.41
13. Livy, 2.42
14. Livy, 2.43
15. Livy, 2.50; Dionysius of Hallicarnasus, 9.20-1