4. Q.FabiusPictor, the son of No. 2, and the grandson of No. 1, was the most ancient writer of Roman history in prose, and is therefore usually placed at the head of the Roman annalists. Thus he is called by Livy scriptorum antiquissimus (1.44) and longe antiquissimus auctor (2.44). He served in the Gallic war, B. C. 225 (Eutrop. 3.5; Oros. 4.13; comp. Plin. Nat. 10.24. s. 34), and also in the second Punic war; and that he enjoyed considerable reputation among his contemporaries is evident from the circumstance of his being sent to Delphi, after the disastrous battle of Cannae in B. C. 216, to consult the oracle by what means the Romans could propitiate the gods (Liv. 22.57, 23.11; Appian, Annib. 27). We learn from
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Polybius (3.9.4) that he had a seat in the senate, and consequently he must have filled the office of quaestor; but we possess no other particulars respecting his life. The year of his death is uncertain; for the C. Fabius Pictor whose death Livy speaks of (45.44) in B. C. 167, is a different person from the historian [see No. 5]. One might conjecture, from his not obtaining any of the higher dignities of the state, that he died soon after his return from Delphi; but, as Polybius (3.9) speaks of him as one of the historians of the second Punic war, he can hardly have died so soon; and it is probable that his literary habits rendered him disinclined to engage in the active services required of the Roman magistrates at that time.