Fabia (gens) - Origin of The Gens

Origin of The Gens

According to legend, the Fabii claimed descent from Hercules, who visited Italy a generation before the Trojan War, and from Evander, his host. This brought the Fabii into the same tradition as the Pinarii and Potitii, who were said to have welcomed Hercules and learned from him the sacred rites which for centuries afterward they performed in his honor.

Another early legend stated that at the founding of Rome, the followers of the brothers Romulus and Remus were called the Quinctilii and the Fabii, respectively. The brothers were said to have offered up sacrifices in the cave of the Lupercal at the base of the Palatine Hill, which became the origin of the Lupercalia. This story is certainly connected with the tradition that the two colleges of the Luperci bore the names of these ancient gentes.

The nomen of the Fabii is said originally to have been Fovius, Favius, or Fodius; Plinius stated that it was derived from faba, a bean, a vegetable which the Fabii were said to have first cultivated. A more fanciful explanation derives the name from fovae, ditches, which the ancestors of the Fabii were said to have used in order to capture wolves.

It is uncertain whether the Fabii were of Latin or Sabine origin. Niebuhr, followed by Göttling, considered them Sabines. However, other scholars are unsatisfied with their reasoning, and point out that the legend associating the Fabii with Romulus and Remus would place them at Rome before the incorporation of the Sabines into the nascent Roman state.

It may nonetheless be noted that, even supposing this tradition to be based on actual historical events, the followers of the brothers were described as "shepherds," and presumably included many of the people then living in the countryside where the city of Rome was to be built. The hills of Rome were already inhabited at the time of the city's legendary founding, and they stood in the hinterland between the Latins, Sabines, and Etruscans. Even if many the followers of Romulus and Remus were Latins from the ancient city of Alba Longa, many may also have been Sabines already living in the surrounding countryside.