Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges (consul 292 BC)

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Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges was the son of Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus and a Consul in 292, 276 and 265 BC.

In 295 BC he was curule aedile, and fined certain matrons of noble birth for their disorderly life. With the proceeds of the fines built a temple to Venus near the Circus Maximus.

He was consul in 292 BC, and was completely defeated by the Pentrian Samnites. The adversaries of the Fabian house, the Papirian and Appian parties, took advantage of this defeat to turn the people against him, and he escaped degradation from the consulate only through his father's offer to serve as his lieutenant for the remainder of the war.

Victory to Roman arms returned with the elder Fabius. In a second battle the younger consul retrieved his reputation, stormed several Samnite towns, and was rewarded with a triumph of which the most remarkable feature was old Fabius riding beside his son's chariot.

In 291 BC, he was proconsul in Samnium. There he was besieging Cominium when the consul, Lucius Postumius Megellus, arbitrarily and violently drove him from the army and the province. The Fasti ascribe a triumph to Fabius for his proconsulate.

He was consul for the second time in 276, when he obtained a second tri­umph (Samnium and Brutium) . Shortly afterwards he went as legatus from Rome to Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt. The presents which Fabius and his colleagues re­ceived from the Egyptian monarch they deposited in the public treasury on their return to Rome, but a decree of the Senate directed that the ambas­sadors should retain them. Gurges was slain in his third consul­ship (265 BC), while engaged in quelling some disturbances at Vulsinii in Etruria. Like his father and grandfather, Fabius Gurges was princeps senatus.


Preceded by
Lucius Papirius Cursor and Spurius Carvilius Maximus
Consul of the Roman Republic
with Decimus Iunius Brutus Scaeva
292 BC
Succeeded by
Lucius Postumius Megellus and Gaius Iunius Bubulcus Brutus
Preceded by
Publius Cornelius Rufinus and Gaius Iunius Bubulcus Brutus
Consul of the Roman Republic
with Gaius Genucius Clepsina
276 BC
Succeeded by
Manius Curius Dentatus and Lucius Cornelius Lentulus
Preceded by
Decimus Iunius Pera and Numerius Fabius Pictor
Consul of the Roman Republic
with Lucius Mamilius Q.f. Vitulus
265 BC
Succeeded by
Appius Claudius Caudex and Marcus Fulvius Flaccus