The New Student's Reference Work/Fabius Maximus

Fa′bius Max′imus, a member of one of the most illustrious patrician families of Rome. He was five times consul and twice censor, and was elected dictator immediately after the defeat of the Romans at Trasimenus. The tactics he observed in the second Punic War gave rise to what is now known as the Fabian policy in warfare. He avoided a direct engagement and harassed the enemy by guerilla warfare; he annoyed them by marches and counter-marches and cut off their stragglers and foragers; and during all this time his delay allowed Rome to assemble her forces in greater strength. He recovered Tarentum, one of Hannibal's strongholds. He died 203 B. C.