Quintus Fabius Ambustus (flourished early 4th century BC) was a military leader of the Roman Republic, and the son of Marcus Fabius Ambustus. In 390 BC, when his father was pontifex maximus, he and his two brothers, Numerius and Caeso, were sent as emissaries to a Gaulish army besieging Clusium. Instead of entering into negotiations, however, the three Fabii gathered their forces and aided the citizens of Clusium in an attack against the Gauls, in which Quintus Fabius himself was said to have killed one of the Gaulish leaders. [1]
Outraged, the Gauls demanded that the senate hand over the three brothers for violating "the law of nations". Instead, all three were honored by election as consular tribunes. Further incensed, the Gauls marched on Rome, defeated the Roman Army in the Battle of the Allia, and sacked the city. In 389 BC he was supposed to have been prosecuted for his actions at Clusium, but died before the trial could take place. [2]
Many scholars believe the entire story of the events at Clusium to be fiction, as Clusium had no real reason to appeal to Rome for help, and the Gauls needed no real provocation to sack Rome. The story, it is hypothesized, exists to provide an explanation for an otherwise unmotivated attack on Rome, and to depict Rome as a bulwark of Italy against the Gauls. [2]
Quintus Fabius Ambustus was played by Tony Kendall in the 1963 film Brennus, Enemy of Rome .
Year 391 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Tribunate of Flavus, Medullinus, Camerinus, Fusus, Mamercinus and Mamercinus. The denomination 391 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
The First, Second, and Third Samnite Wars were fought between the Roman Republic and the Samnites, who lived on a stretch of the Apennine Mountains south of Rome and north of the Lucanian tribe.
The gens Fabia was one of the most ancient patrician families at ancient Rome. The gens played a prominent part in history soon after the establishment of the Republic, and three brothers were invested with seven successive consulships, from 485 to 479 BC, thereby cementing the high repute of the family. Overall, the Fabii received 45 consulships during the Republic. The house derived its greatest lustre from the patriotic courage and tragic fate of the 306 Fabii in the Battle of the Cremera, 477 BC. But the Fabii were not distinguished as warriors alone; several members of the gens were also important in the history of Roman literature and the arts.
Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus, son of Marcus Fabius Ambustus, of the patrician Fabii of ancient Rome, was five times consul and a hero of the Samnite Wars. He was brother to Marcus Fabius Ambustus.
The Battle of the Allia was a battle fought c. 387 BC between the Senones – a Gallic tribe led by Brennus, who had invaded Northern Italy – and the Roman Republic.
The Battle of Sentinum was the decisive battle of the Third Samnite War, fought in 295 BC near Sentinum, in which the Romans overcame a formidable coalition of Samnites, Etruscans, and Umbrians and Senone Gauls. The Romans won a decisive victory that broke up the tribal coalition and paved the way for the Romans' complete victory over the Samnites. The Romans involved in the battle of Sentinum were commanded by consuls Publius Decius Mus and Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus.
Clusium was an ancient city in Italy, one of several found at the site. The current municipality of Chiusi (Tuscany) partly overlaps this Roman walled city. The Roman city remodeled an earlier Etruscan city, Clevsin, found in the territory of a prehistoric culture, possibly also Etruscan or proto-Etruscan. The site is located in northern central Italy on the west side of the Apennines.
Brennus was a chieftain of the Senones. He defeated the Romans at the Battle of the Allia. Later that year, he led an army of Cisalpine Gauls in their attack on Rome and captured most of the city, holding it for several months. Brennus' sack of Rome was the only time in 800 years the city was occupied by a non-Roman army before the fall of the city to the Visigoths in 410 AD.
Marcus Fabius Ambustus was a statesman and general of the Roman Republic. He was the son of Numerius Fabius Ambustus.
Marcus Fabius Ambustus was Pontifex Maximus of the Roman Republic in the year that Rome was taken by the Gauls of Brennus, 390 BC. His three sons--Caeso, Numerius, and Quintus—were sent as ambassadors to the Gauls, when the latter were besieging Clusium, and participated in an attack against the besieging Gauls. The Gauls demanded that the Fabii should be surrendered to them for violating the law of nations; and upon the senate refusing to give up the guilty parties, they marched against Rome, which they sacked after the battle of the Allia. The three sons were in the same year elected consular tribunes.
Caeso Fabius Ambustus was a four-time consular tribune of the Roman Republic around the turn of the 5th and 4th centuries BC.
NumeriusFabius Ambustus was an ancient Roman commander who was the son of Marcus Fabius Ambustus, and brother to Caeso and Quintus. In 406 BC, he and his forces captured the Volscian city of Anxur by securing the high ground above the town, from which they were able to launch attacks against its walls. When the town's defenders attempted to respond to these harassing attacks, the remainder of Numerius' forces used escalade to scale the walls and enter the town. After the victory, his forces began to torture the inhabitants of the city in retaliation for the Volscian massacre of the Roman garrison at Verrugo, thought to be located in the Trerus valley, of the Lazio region, and where the Roman prisoners had been horribly tortured. Numerius eventually showed mercy, and around 2500 Volscians were permitted to surrender with their lives.
Marcus Fabius Ambustus was a consular tribune of the Roman Republic in 381 BC, and a censor in 363.
Gaius Fabius Ambustus was consul of the Roman Republic in 358 BC, in which year, according to Livy, a dictator was appointed through fear of the Gauls. He was appointed Interrex in 355 BC.
Marcus Fabius Ambustus was Magister Equitum of the Roman Republic in 322 BC. The identification of him as the son of the consul M. Fabius Ambustus depends on a reference in Livy to the active military service of a cavalry officer serving under the dictator Aulus Cornelius Cossus Arvina, but T.R.S. Broughton finds it more likely that the three-time consul was himself the Magister Equitum carrying out administrative duties. Similarly, it is unclear if it was this M. Fabius who was the interrex appointed in 340 BC or if this should be attributed to his father the consul M. Fabius Ambustus or another consul of the Fabii, M. Fabius Dursuo.
Gaius Fabius Ambustus was a general and politician of ancient Rome. He was the son apparently of Marcus Fabius Ambustus, and brother to Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus and to the Marcus Fabius Ambustus who was magister equitum in 322 BC. He himself was appointed Master of the Horse in 315 BC in place of Quintus Aulius Cerretanus, who had fallen in battle while serving as Master of the Horse to Gaius's brother Marcus.
Over the course of nearly four centuries, the Roman Republic fought a series of wars against various Celtic tribes, whom they collectively described as Galli, or Gauls. Among the principal Gallic peoples described as antagonists by Greek and Roman writers were the Senones, Insubres, Boii, and Gaesatae.
Quintus Fabius Maximus Servilianus was the adoptive son of Quintus Fabius Maximus Aemilianus and the natural son of Gnaeus Servilius Caepio --hence the adoptive cognomen Servilianus. He was consul of the Roman Republic in 142 BC together with Lucius Caecilius Metellus Calvus. He was the brother of Gnaeus Servilius Caepio and Quintus Servilius Caepio. All three brothers were commanders in the Roman Province of Hispania Ulterior and fought in the Lusitanian War.
Marcus Fabius Vibulanus was consul of the Roman republic in 442 BC and consular tribune in 433 BC.
Quintus Servilius Fidenas was a prominent early Roman politician who achieved the position of Consular tribune six times throughout a sixteen-year period. Quintus Servilius was a member of the illustrious gens Servilia, a patrician family which had achieved great prominence since the foundation of the republic. In particular, Servilius was the son of Quintus Servilius Priscus Fidenas, a well respected statesman and general who served as dictator twice, in 435 and 418 BC, as well as holding the religious title of either augur or pontifex, which he held until his death in 390 BC. Servilius the younger himself had at least one son, also named Quintus Servilius Fidenas, who served as consular tribune in 382, 378, and 369 BC.