1.16

Slaughter of the Fabii, 479 BCE

(1) C. Fabiō et L. Virgīniō cōnsulibus: "C. Fabius and L. Virginius being consuls" = “in the consulship of," etc. One of the regular ways of dating events in Latin is to give the names of the consuls for that year. Another is to reckon the time from the founding of the city (Hazzard). Ablative absolute with form of the verb esse assumed (AG 419.a)

quī ex Fabiā familiā erant: in 479 BCE, according to tradition, the whole Fabian gens, with the exception of one boy, was destroyed on the Cremera. This is supported by the fact that although a Fabian had held one of the consulships each year from 485 BCE to 479 BCE no Fabian held office for the next eleven years (Bird).

contrā Vēientēs: see Veii

prōmittentēs senātuī et populō per sē omne certāmen implendum: supply esse; "promising the senate and the people that the whole contest would be completed by themselves." Prōmittō regularly takes the future infinitive (Hazzard).

(2) quī singulī...dēbērent: quī introduces a relative clause of characteristic, with singulī as predicate nominative (AG 534).

(3) Ūnus omnīnō superfuit: regarding the tragedy, Florus states:

Enemies came so regularly from Etruria and the Veientes that the Fabian gens undertook it upon themselves to take up arms and wage a private war against them. It was a disaster—even worse, a slaughter. At Cremera three hundred of them—an entire army of patrician nobles—were slain, and afterwards the slaughter was commemorated by renaming the gate they had last passed through the "evil gate." (Florus 1.6.1–6).

cēnsus: for more information on the Roman census, see note in Brev. 1.7.

capita: "souls," cf. our expression "head of cattle" (Hazzard). Supposedly those prior to 392 BCE included men, women, and children (Bird).