In
Roman mythology, Fabius was the son of
Hercules and an unnamed mother.
In "The Life of Fabius Maximus" from the ''
Parallel Lives
Plutarch's ''Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans'', commonly called ''Parallel Lives'' or ''Plutarch's Lives'', is a series of 48 biographies of famous men, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings, probably writt ...
'' by
Plutarch, Fabius, the first of his name, was the son of Hercules by a nymph or a woman native to the country, who consorted with Hercules by the
River Tiber
The Tiber ( ; it, Tevere ; la, Tiberis) is the third-longest river in Italy and the longest in Central Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, where it is joined by the Riv ...
.
Silius Italicus
Tiberius Catius Asconius Silius Italicus (, c. 26 – c. 101 AD) was a Roman senator, orator and Epic poetry, epic poet of the Silver Age of Latin literature. His only surviving work is the 17-book ''Punica (poem), Punica'', an epic poem about th ...
, also chronicling the noble origins of
Fabius Maximus, mentions in his poem ''
Punica'' that Hercules lay with a daughter of
King Evander of
Pallantium
Pallantium ( grc, Παλλάντιον) was an ancient city near the Tiber river on the Italian peninsula. Roman mythology, as recounted in Virgil's ''Aeneid'' for example, states that the city was founded by Evander of Pallene and other ancient ...
and with her he fathered the first Fabius in the site where
Rome would later be situated.
However,
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus ( grc, Διονύσιος Ἀλεξάνδρου Ἁλικαρνασσεύς,
; – after 7 BC) was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Emperor Augustus. His literary sty ...
mentions that the daughter of Evander with whom Hercules had a son, named
Pallas, was Lavinia, although Pallas is more commonly considered Evander's son, as
Virgil recounts in the ''
Aeneid''.
[Virgil, ''Aeneid'', VIII.514ff.]
Fabius was the founder of the family of the
Fabii, one of the most ancient
patrician families at
ancient Rome, and that distinguished itself as warriors, politicians, religious, literati and artists.
The modern given name
Fabio descends from the Latin ''Fabius''.
References
{{reflist, 2
Fabii
Children of Heracles
Characters in Roman mythology