Fa'bia
the name of two daughters of the patrician M. Fabius Ambustus.
The elder was married to Ser. Sulpicius, a patrician, land one of the military tribunes of the year B. C. 376, and the younger to the plebeian C. Licinius Stolo, who is said to have been urged on to his legislation by the vanity of his wife. Once, so the story runs, while the younger Fabia was staying with her sister, a lictor knocked at the door to announce the return of Ser. Sulpicius from the forum.
This noise frightened the younger Fabia. who was unaccustomed to such things, and her elder sister ridiculed her for her ignorance.
This, as well as the other honours which were paid to Servilius, deeply wounded the vanity of the younger Fabia, and her jealousy and envy made her unhappy. 11er father perceived that she was suffering from something, and contrived to elicit the cause of her grief.
He then consoled her by telling her that shortly she should see the same honours and distinctions conferred upon her own husband, and thereupon he consulted with C. Licinius Stolo about the steps to be taken for this purpose; and L. Sextius being let into the secret, a plot was formed of which the legislation of C. Licinius and L. Sextius was the result. (
Liv. 6.34;
Zonar. 7.24; Aur. Vict. (
de Vir. Illustr. 20 ) The improbability and inconsistency of this story has long since been exploded, for how could the younger Fabia have been ignorant of or startled by the distinctions enjoyed by her sister's husband, as her own father had been invested with the same office in B. C. 381 ?
The story must therefore be considered as one of those inventions by which a defeated party endeavours to console itself, namely, by tracing the conqueror's actions to base and ignoble motives.
[
L.S]
