Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges (consul 292 BC)

Quintus Fabius Q. f. M. n. Maximus Gurges, the son of Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus, was consul in 292, 276, and 265 BC. After a dissolute youth and a significant military defeat during his first consulate, he was given the opportunity to retrieve his reputation through the influence of his father, and became a successful general, eventually holding the highest honours of the Roman state. He was slain in battle during his third and final consulate.

Gurges' father, Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus, was one of Rome's most celebrated generals, and had held the consulship five times between 322 and 297 BC. In his time he had served as both dictator and magister equitum, and been elected censor in 304. However, all of his accomplishments followed from a rash incident in his youth, when as magister equitum to the dictator Lucius Papirius Cursor in 325, during the Second Samnite War, he engaged the enemy and won a significant victory. Rather than praising his lieutenant's initiative, Papirius, who had left Rullianus in command while he attended to other business, was furious, as he had ordered the magister equitum not to engage the enemy in battle during his absence. Fabius only escaped execution by fleeing to Rome, where he begged the intercession of the people, and was saved by the appeal of his aged father.

The son received his surname, Gurges, or "the glutton", on account of the habits of his own youth, in which he enjoyed every luxury. But when he embarked on a public career, Fabius set aside his indulgent lifestyle and cultivated a more sober image. As curule aedile in 295 BC, Fabius levied fines against wealthy Roman matrons who had been convicted of adultery, and dedicated the funds to building a temple of Venus, which stood near the Circus Maximus.

Three years later, in BC 292, Fabius was consul for the first time, with Decimus Junius Brutus Scaeva. Rome was engaged in the Third and final Samnite War, and Fabius undertook a command against the Pentri, the leading tribe of the Samnites, in which he was utterly defeated. At Rome, the traditional rivals of the Fabii, the Papirii and the Claudii urged that Fabius be relieved of his authority and degraded from consular rank as a punishment for his incompetence. In opposition to this, Fabius' father, Rullianus, urged that his son be permitted to redeem himself, volunteering to serve personally as his son's lieutenant on a subsequent campaign. Thus spared public humiliation, Fabius made good on his father's word, defeating the Samnites taking several towns, and capturing the Samnite general Pontius, for all of which he was awarded a triumph; the latter occasion was the more notable because the elder Fabius rode beside his son's chariot.

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