Fabia (gens) - Branches and Cognomina of The Gens

Branches and Cognomina of The Gens

The cognomina of the Fabii under the Republic were Ambustus, Buteo, Dorso or Dorsuo, Labeo, Licinus, Maximus (with the agnomina Aemilianus, Allobrogicus, Eburnus, Gurges, Rullianus, Servilianus, and Verrucosus), Pictor, and Vibulanus. Other cognomina belonged to persons who were not, strictly speaking, members of the gens, but who were freedmen or the descendants of freedmen, or who had been enrolled as Roman citizens under the Fabii. The only cognomina appearing on coins are Hispaniensis, Labeo, Maximus, and Pictor.

In imperial times it becomes difficult to distinguish between members of the gens and unrelated persons sharing the same nomen. Members of the gens are known as late as the 2nd century, but persons bearing the name of Fabius continue to appear into the latest period of the Empire.

The eldest branch of the Fabii bore the cognomen Vibulanus, which may allude to an ancestral home of the gens. The surname Ambustus, meaning "burnt", replaced Vibulanus at the end of the 5th century BC; the first of the Fabii to be called Ambustus was a descendant of the Vibulani. The most celebrated stirps of the Fabia gens, which bore the surname Maximus, was in turn descended from the Fabii Ambusti. This family was famous for its statesmen and its military exploits, which lasted from the Samnite Wars, in the 4th century BC until the wars with the Germanic invaders of the 2nd century BC. Most, if not all of the later Fabii Maximi were descendants of Quintus Fabius Maximus Aemilianus, one of the Aemilii Paulli, who as a child was adopted by a descendant or close relative of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus.

Buteo, signifying a kind of hawk, was originally given to a member of the Fabia gens because such a bird on one occasion settled upon his ship with a favorable omen. This tradition, related by Plinius, does not indicate which of the Fabii first obtained this surname, but it was probably one of the Fabii Ambusti.

The surname Pictor, borne by another family of the Fabii, signifies a painter, and the earliest known member of this family was indeed a painter, famed for his work in the temple of Salus, built by Gaius Junius Bubulcus Brutus between 307 and 302 BC. The later members of this family, several of whom were distinguished in the arts, appear to have been his descendants, and must have taken their cognomen from this ancestor.