Plutarch, a Greek from Chaeronea in central Greece, wrote Parallel Lives around the year 100: paired biographies of Greeks and Romans. This life is Quintus Fabius Maximus. After Hannibal of Carthage — from what is now Tunisia — smashed a consul's army in the mist at Lake Trasimene in Italy, Rome named Fabius dictator, an emergency commander with nearly a king's power. A consul was one of two officials elected to run the Roman Republic for a year. Plutarch pairs Fabius with Pericles of Athens.

Fabius would not fight. He shadowed Hannibal through the hills, cut the foraging, and let Rome call him Cunctator — the Delayer — as an insult. Minucius seized a chance and nearly lost the army. Cannae, in southern Italy, then taught what haste cost: tens of thousands of Romans dead in an afternoon. Fabius held the gates, bought the years, and lived to see Scipio take the war to Africa.