{"id":33700,"date":"2015-11-25T05:00:19","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T10:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=33700"},"modified":"2021-08-17T17:39:25","modified_gmt":"2021-08-17T21:39:25","slug":"the-delaying-tactics-of-fabius-cunctatus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/11\/25\/the-delaying-tactics-of-fabius-cunctatus\/","title":{"rendered":"The delaying tactics of Fabius Cunctatus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/warontherocks.com\/2015\/09\/fabian-strategies-then-and-now\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">James Holmes<\/a> suggests a few lessons modern tacticians can learn from the great Roman general, Quintus Fabius Maximus:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Quintus Fabius would nod knowingly at seeing the world turned upside down. Celebrated as Fabius <em>Cunctatus<\/em> (\u201cthe Delayer\u201d), the Roman dictator lent his name to strategies whereby commanders deploy strategically defensive yet tactically offensive methods to forestall a decisive battle \u2014 all while marshaling manpower, implements of war, and other resources to right the military imbalance.<\/p>\n<p>Skillfully prosecuted, a Fabian strategy proffers an opportunity to defeat a superior foe in a conventional trial of arms. And indeed, Fabius\u2019s feats of arms earned him the nickname \u201c<em>Maximus<\/em>\u201d among Romans \u2014 signifying rock-star status. Historians of classical antiquity ranging from Polybius to Plutarch to Machiavelli considered him an icon of patient, guileful martial statecraft.<\/p>\n<p>Polybius retells Fabius\u2019s tale expertly. After trekking over the Alps, the Carthaginian warlord Hannibal\u2019s army had rampaged throughout Italy, compiling a virtually unbroken record of battlefield victory. In particular, his triumph over the Roman legions at Cannae won enduring fame in Western military circles. Two millennia later General Dwight Eisenhower recalled in his memoir <em>Crusade in Europe<\/em>, \u201cEvery ground commander seeks the battle of annihilation,\u201d maintained Eisenhower; \u201che tries to duplicate in modern war the classic example of Cannae.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Granted emergency powers, Fabius assumed personal command of the legions and encamped near the Carthaginian host at Aecae. Upon learning that the Roman army was nearby, Hannibal resolved to \u201cterrify the enemy by promptly attacking.\u201d The Roman riposte? Nothing. No one responded to the Carthaginians\u2019 approach. They trudged back to camp. Having acknowledged his army\u2019s \u201cmanifest inferiority,\u201d Fabius \u201cmade up his mind to incur no danger and not to risk a battle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He was ornery that way. Better to live to fight another day, and on more favorable terms. Why rush in and risk fresh disaster? Rome was fighting on home turf. Its armies were beneficiaries of an \u201cinexhaustible supply of provisions and of men.\u201d Fabius only needed time to tap that potential, transforming latent into kinetic military power.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>James Holmes suggests a few lessons modern tacticians can learn from the great Roman general, Quintus Fabius Maximus: Quintus Fabius would nod knowingly at seeing the world turned upside down. Celebrated as Fabius Cunctatus (\u201cthe Delayer\u201d), the Roman dictator lent his name to strategies whereby commanders deploy strategically defensive yet tactically offensive methods to forestall [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[31,1046,1434,572,1345,561],"class_list":["post-33700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-military","tag-army","tag-carthage","tag-hannibal","tag-leadership","tag-romanrepublic","tag-rome"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-8Ly","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33700"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54374,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33700\/revisions\/54374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}