Fabius Maximus

The rabble were moved by such utterances. They did not dare to force Fabius to resign his sovereignty, unpopular as he was, but they voted that Minucius should have an equal share in the command, and should conduct the war with the same powers as the dictator,—a thing which had not happened before in Rome. A little while afterwards, it is true, it happened again, namely, after the disaster at Cannae.[*](Cf. chapter xvi. )

At that time Marcus Junius the dictator was in the field, and at home it became necessary that the senate should be filled up, since many senators had perished in the battle. They therefore elected Fabius Buteo a second dictator. But he, after acting in that capacity and choosing the men to fill up the senate, at once dismissed his lictors, eluded his escort, plunged into the crowd, and straightway went up and down the forum arranging some business matter of his own and engaging in affairs like a private citizen.

Now that they had invested Minucius with the same powers as the dictator, the people supposed that the latter would feel shorn of strength and altogether humble, but they did not estimate the man aright. For he did not regard their mistake as his own calamity, but was like Diogenes the wise man, who, when some one said to him, These folk are ridiculing you, said, But I am not ridiculed. He held that only those are ridiculed who are confounded by such treatment and yield their ground.

So Fabius endured the situation calmly and easily, so far as it affected himself, thereby confirming the axiom of philosophy that a sincerely good man can neither be insulted nor dishonoured. But because it affected the state, he was distressed by the folly of the multitude. They had given opportunities to a man with a diseased military ambition,

and fearful lest this man, utterly crazed by his empty glory and prestige, should bring about some great disaster before he could be checked, he set out in all secrecy from the city. When he reached the camp, he found that Minucius was no longer to be endured. He was harsh in his manner, puffed up with conceit, and demanded the sole command in his due turn. This Fabius would not grant, feeling that the sole command of a part of the army was better than the command of the whole in his turn.