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Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database



9573
Plutarch, Fabius, 5.3


μόνος δʼ ἐκεῖνος αὐτοῦ τὴν δεινότητα, καὶ τὸν τρόπον ᾧ πολεμεῖν ἐγνώκει, συνιδών, καὶ διανοηθεὶς ὡς πάσῃ τέχνῃ καὶ βίᾳ κινητέος ἐστὶν εἰς μάχην ὁ ἀνὴρ ἢ διαπέπρακται τὰ Καρχηδονίων, οἷς μέν εἰσι κρείττους ὅπλοις χρήσασθαι μὴ δυναμένων, οἷς δὲ λείπονται σώμασι καὶ χρήμασιν ἐλαττουμένων καὶ δαπανωμένων εἰς τὸ μηδέν, ἐπὶ πᾶσαν ἰδέαν στρατηγικῶν σοφισμάτων καὶ παλαις μάτων τ ρεπόμενος, καὶ πειρώμενος ὥσπερ δεινὸς ἀθλητὴς λαβὴν ζητῶν, προσέβαλλε καὶ διετάραττε καὶ μετῆγε πολλαχόσε τὸν Φάβιον, ἐκστῆσαι τῶν ὑπὲρ τῆς ἀσφαλείας λογισμῶν βουλόμενος.He, and he alone, comprehended the cleverness of his antagonist, and the style of warfare which he had adopted. He therefore made up his mind that by every possible device and constraint his foe must be induced to fight, or else the Carthaginians were undone, since they were unable to use their weapons, in which they were superior, but were slowly losing and expending to no purpose their men and moneys, in which they were inferior. He therefore resorted to every species of strategic trick and artifice, and tried them all, seeking, like a clever athlete, to get a hold upon his adversary. Now he would attack Fabius directly, now he would seek to throw his forces into confusion, and now he would try to lead him off every whither, in his desire to divorce him from his safe, defensive plans.


Intertexts (texts cited often on the same page as the searched text):

8 results
1. Polybius, Histories, 3.89.3, 3.105.9-3.105.10 (2nd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE)

3.89.3.  At first, it is true, he was despised for this, and gave people occasion to say that he was playing the coward and was in deadly fear of an engagement, but as time went on, he forced everyone to confess and acknowledge that it was impossible for anyone to deal with the present situation in more sensible and prudent manner.
2. Plutarch, Aemilius Paulus, 17 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

3. Plutarch, Julius Caesar, 11.6 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

4. Plutarch, Comparison of Fabius With Pericles, 2.2-2.4, 3.2 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

2.4. Therefore the very disasters of his country bear witness to the sagacity of Pericles; while the successes of the Romans proved that Fabius was completely in the wrong. And it is just as great a failing in a general to involve himself in disaster from want of foresight, as it is to throw away an opportunity for success from want of confidence. Inexperience, it would seem, is to blame in each case, which both engenders rashness in a man, and robs a man of courage. So much for their military abilities.
5. Plutarch, Fabius, 5.4-5.6, 12.3, 14.1, 17.5, 18.4, 22.5-22.6 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

5.5. All the more therefore did he indulge his arrogance and boldness, and scoffed at their encampments on the heights, where, as he said, the dictator was always arranging beautiful theatres for their spectacle of Italy laid waste with fire and sword. And he would ask the friends of Fabius whether he was taking his army up into heaven, having lost all hope of earth, or whether he wrapped himself in clouds and mists merely to run away from the enemy. 5.6. When his friends reported this to Fabius, and advised him to do away with the opprobrium by risking battle, In that case, surely, said he, I should be a greater coward than I am now held to be, if through fear of abusive jests I should abandon my fixed plans. And verily the fear which one exercises in behalf of his country is not shameful; but to be frightened from one’s course by the opinions of men, and by their slanderous censures, that marks a man unworthy of so high an office as this, who makes himself the slave of the fools over whom he is in duty bound to be lord and master. 5.6. When his friends reported this to Fabius, and advised him to do away with the opprobrium by risking battle, In that case, surely, said he,I should be a greater coward than I am now held to be, if through fear of abusive jests I should abandon my fixed plans. And verily the fear which one exercises in behalf of his country is not shameful; but to be frightened from one’s course by the opinions of men, and by their slanderous censures, that marks a man unworthy of so high an office as this, who makes himself the slave of the fools over whom he is in duty bound to be lord and master. 12.3. Well then, as soon as he appeared upon the scene, he routed and dispersed the Numidians who were galloping about in the plain. Then he made against those who were attacking the rear of the Romans under Minucius, and slew those whom he encountered. But the rest of them, ere they were cut off and surrounded in their own turn, as the Romans had been by them, gave way and fled. 14.1. After this, Fabius laid down his office, and consuls were again appointed. The first of these maintained the style of warfare which Fabius had ordained. They avoided a pitched battle with Hannibal, but gave aid and succour to their allies, and prevented their falling away. But when Terentius Varro was elevated to the consulship, a man whose birth was obscure and whose life was conspicuous for servile flattery of the people and for rashness, it was clear that in his inexperience and temerity he would stake the entire issue upon the hazard of a single throw. 17.5. For he who, in times of apparent security, appeared cautious and irresolute, then, when all were plunged in boundless grief and helpless confusion, was the only man to walk the city with calm step, composed countece, and gracious address, checking effeminate lamentation, and preventing those from assembling together who were eager to make public their common complaints. He persuaded the senate to convene, heartened up the magistrates, and was himself the strength and power of every magistracy, since all looked to him for guidance. 18.4. But most of all was the gentle dignity of the city to be admired in this, that when Varro, the consul, came back from his flight, as one would come back from a most ill-starred and disgraceful experience, in humility and dejection, the senate and the whole people met him at the gates with a welcome. 22.5. While everything else was carried off as plunder, it is said that the accountant asked Fabius what his orders were concerning the gods, for so he called their pictures and statues; and that Fabius answered: Let us leave their angered gods for the Tarentines. 22.5. While everything else was carried off as plunder, it is said that the accountant asked Fabius what his orders were concerning the gods, for so he called their pictures and statues; and that Fabius answered:Let us leave their angered gods for the Tarentines. 22.6. However, he removed the colossal statue of Heracles from Tarentum, and set it up on the Capitol, and near it an equestrian statue of himself, in bronze. He thus appeared far more eccentric in these matters than Marcellus, nay rather, the mild and humane conduct of Marcellus was thus made to seem altogether admirable by contrast, as has been written in his Life. Chapter xxi. Marcellus had enriched Rome with works of Greek art taken from Syracuse in 212 B.C. Livy’s opinion is rather different from Plutarch’s: sed maiore animo generis eius praeda abstinuit Fabius quam Marcellus, xxvii. 16. Fabius killed the people but spared their gods; Marcellus spared the people but took their gods.
6. Plutarch, Marius, 24.1 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

7. Plutarch, Pericles, 15.1, 39.4 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

15.1. Thus, then, seeing that political differences were entirely remitted and the city had become a smooth surface, as it were, and altogether united, he brought under his own control Athens and all the issues dependent on the Athenians,—tributes, armies, triremes, the islands, the sea, the vast power derived from Hellenes, vast also from Barbarians, and a supremacy that was securely hedged about with subject nations, royal friendships, and dynastic alliances. 39.4. The progress of events wrought in the Athenians a swift appreciation of Pericles and a keen sense of his loss. For those who, while he lived, were oppressed by a sense of his power and felt that it kept them in obscurity, straightway on his removal made trial of other orators and popular leaders, only to be led to the confession that a character more moderate than his in its solemn dignity, and more august in its gentleness, had not been created.
8. Plutarch, Themistocles, 3.4 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)



Subjects of this text:

subject book bibliographic info
aemilius paulus Beneker et al., Plutarch’s Unexpected Silences: Suppression and Selection in the Lives and Moralia (2022) 84
aftermath of cities Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100
ambition/ambitious Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 101
athenians, and pericles Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100
athenians Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100
audience, the subjects interaction with his Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
caesar, c. iulius Kingsley Monti and Rood, The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography (2022) 247
character (plutarchs and readers concern with) Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
closure (endings of biographies) Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
cognition Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
community, the subject and his Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
contrasts, as narrative technique Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
contrasts Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
cowardice Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 101
criticism, and counter-suggestibility Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
criticism, contemporary to the story narrated, exercised by onlookers Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
criticism, plutarchs stance towards others Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
criticism Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
death, and posthumous conversion of people Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100
examples (i.e. paradigm), the subjects as Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100
explanations Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 101
fabius maximus, romans criticism of Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
fabius maximus Beneker et al., Plutarch’s Unexpected Silences: Suppression and Selection in the Lives and Moralia (2022) 84; Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101; Kingsley Monti and Rood, The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography (2022) 247
feelings Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100
foils Roller, Disclosure and Discretion in Roman Astrology: Manilius and his Augustan Contemporaries (2018) 169
gloria Roller, Disclosure and Discretion in Roman Astrology: Manilius and his Augustan Contemporaries (2018) 169
hannibal Kingsley Monti and Rood, The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography (2022) 247
historiography, roman Kingsley Monti and Rood, The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography (2022) 247
judging audience, enemy as Roller, Disclosure and Discretion in Roman Astrology: Manilius and his Augustan Contemporaries (2018) 169
judging audience Roller, Disclosure and Discretion in Roman Astrology: Manilius and his Augustan Contemporaries (2018) 169
lives, within a life Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100
marathon, battle of Kingsley Monti and Rood, The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography (2022) 247
mardonius Kingsley Monti and Rood, The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography (2022) 247
medical imagery/language Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100
miltiades Kingsley Monti and Rood, The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography (2022) 247
minucius rufus, marcus Roller, Disclosure and Discretion in Roman Astrology: Manilius and his Augustan Contemporaries (2018) 169
moral turnaround Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
narrator Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100
onlookers Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100
perception Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100
pericles, and the hostile public mind Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100
pericles Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100
perspectives, of the subjects Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 101
perspectives, presentation of different Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 101
philotimia (love of honours) Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 101
plataea, battle of Kingsley Monti and Rood, The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography (2022) 247
plutarch, self-praise and self-presentation Kingsley Monti and Rood, The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography (2022) 247
pompey Beneker et al., Plutarch’s Unexpected Silences: Suppression and Selection in the Lives and Moralia (2022) 84
posthumous, honour or dishonour Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100
posthumous Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100
pydna, battle of Beneker et al., Plutarch’s Unexpected Silences: Suppression and Selection in the Lives and Moralia (2022) 84
reflection, the readers Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100
romans, and fabius maximus Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
romans Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
rome Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
self-control Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100
social/society, dialogue of individual with Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
social/society, plutarchs interest in Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
social/society, plutarchs reconstruction of Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 100, 101
sparta/spartans Kingsley Monti and Rood, The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography (2022) 247
synkrisis, formal Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 101
the preceding lives Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 101
themistocles Kingsley Monti and Rood, The Authoritative Historian: Tradition and Innovation in Ancient Historiography (2022) 247
vices, cowardice Roller, Disclosure and Discretion in Roman Astrology: Manilius and his Augustan Contemporaries (2018) 169
violence' Chrysanthou, Plutarch's 'Parallel Lives': Narrative Technique and Moral Judgement (2018) 101
virtus Roller, Disclosure and Discretion in Roman Astrology: Manilius and his Augustan Contemporaries (2018) 169