

FABRICIUS. 



133 



ject (liis three dissertations oa the Roman aqueducts 

 and his Syntagma de Columna Trajani) received the 

 approbation of all the archaeologists except Gronovius, 

 with whom he had a dispute of some bitterness 

 about the meaning of certain passages in Livy. 

 With equal erudition, Fabretti afterwards examined 

 the bass-reliefs now in the Capitoline Museum, illus- 

 trative of the siege of Troy, and known by the name 

 of Iliac table, as also the subterranean canals, made 

 by Claudius, for draining oft' the waters of lake Fuci- 

 nus. In these, as in the numerous inscriptions dis- 

 covered and collected by him, he showed the depth 

 of his archaeological knowledge. Carpegna gave 

 him the superintendence of subterranean Rome, as it is 

 called, or the catacombs. The treasures which Fab- 

 retti here discovered, and with which he adorned his 

 house at Urbino and his country seat, form the sub- 

 ject of his last work. He met with equal favour 

 from Alexander VIII., who made him secretario de' 

 memoriali, and finally canon in the church of St 

 Peter. Alexander's successor, Innocent XII., ap- 

 pointed him superintendent of the secret archives in 

 the castle of St Angelo, which office he held till his 

 death, in 1700. 



Several treatises of Fabretti did not appear till 

 after his death. An account of his life, by cardinal 

 Rivieri, may be found in Crescimbeni's Lives of il- 

 lustrious Arcadians, and another by the abbe Macotti, 

 in Fabroni's Lives of .illustrious Italians. Fabretti's 

 rich collection of inscriptions and monuments was 

 purchased by cardinal Stoppani, and may be now 

 seen in the ducal palace at Urbino. It is related, 

 that Fabretti's horse, on which he made his excur- 

 sions in the neighbourhood of Rome, became so ac- 

 customed to stop at every monument, that he often 

 did it spontaneously, when his master, absorbed in 

 thought, had overlooked some half-defaced inscrip- 

 tion by the wayside, and thus discovered many 

 monuments. Fabretti was received among the Ar- 

 cadians under the name of Jasitheus (the Greek for 

 Raphael], under which name he carried on a contro- 

 versy with Gronovius. 



FABRICIUS, CAIUS (surnamed Luscinus), a pat- 

 tern of ancient Roman virtue, in his fearlessness, in- 

 tegrity, moderation, and contempt of riches. After 

 having conquered the Samnites and Lucanians, and 

 enriched his country with the spoils, of which he 

 alone took nothing, he was sent on an embassy to 

 Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, to obtain the ransom of 

 some Roman prisoners. Pyrrhus wished to bribe 

 Fabricius, with whose poverty he was acquainted, 

 by large presents. But the honest Roman refused 

 them. As little was he moved by the sight of an 

 elephant, which Pyrrhus, to try his firmness, had 

 concealed behind a curtain, and suddenly exhibited 

 to him in a threatening posture. Pyrrhus dismissed 

 him with admiration, and permitted the prisoners to 

 go to Rome to celebrate the approaching Saturnalia, 

 on a promise that they would return after the festi- 

 val, which they faithfully kept. The king was so 

 charmed with the conduct of Fabricius, that he of- 

 fered him the highest post in his kingdom if he would 

 attach himself to him after the conclusion of peace ; 

 but he independently refused the offer. When con- 

 sul (279 B. C.) Fabricius sent word to Pyrrhus, that 

 his physician offered to poison him for a certain sum 

 of money. " Sooner," said Pyrrhus, " can you turn 

 the sun from its course, than Fabricius from the path 

 of honour." In gratitude for the service, he released 

 the Roman prisoners without ransom. In the year 

 279 B. C., the battle at Asculum was fought, in 

 which Pyrrhus was victorious, but lost the best part 

 of his army. 275 B. C., Fabricius was chosen 

 censor, with jEmilius Papus, and removed Cornelius 

 Runnus from the senate, because he had ten pounds 



of silver plate. A man like Fabricius could not die 

 rich. He was so poor at his death that his daughter 

 received a marriage portion from the public treasury. 

 To honour him even in death, the law of the twelve 

 tables, which prohibited all burials in the city, was 

 suspended in his case. 



FABRICIUS, JOHN ALBERT, a celebrated German 

 scholar, was versed in almost every department of 

 human knowledge, possessed an incredible extent of 

 learning, particularly in philology, and understood 

 the art of using these stores of erudition to the 

 greatest advantage. He was born at Leipsic, in 

 1668, where he studied philosophy, medicine, an 

 theology, and was afterwards made professor of 

 rhetoric and moral philosophy in the gymnasium at 

 Hamburg. In 1719, the landgrave of Hesse-Darm- 

 stadt offered him the first professorship of theology at 

 Giessen, and the superintendency of the Lutheran 

 parishes in his domains ; but the authorities of Ham- 

 burg retained him in that city by enlarging his in- 

 come, and he continued to reside there till his death, 

 in 1736. His work on Greek literature is a model 

 of profound, various, and comprehensive erudition. 

 This is his Bibliotheca Graeca, improved by Harles. 

 No less useful are his Bibliotheca Latina, Bibliotheca 

 media et infimce jEtatis, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica, and 

 Bibliotheca Antiquaria,. Besides these, his edition 

 of Sextus Empiricus, and his remarks on Dion Cas- 

 sius, evince the depth and extent of his learning. 



FABRICIUS, JOHN CHRISTIAN, one of the most 

 celebrated entomologists qf the 18th century, was 

 born at Tundern, in the duchy of Sleswic, 1742. 

 After he had finished his academic course at Copen- 

 hagen at twenty years of age, he pursued his studies 

 at Leyden, Edinburgh, and Freyburg, in Saxony, 

 and under Linnaeus at Upsal. Few scholars of that 

 great man profited more by his instructions. His 

 works upon entomology show, evidently, the princi- 

 ples, the method, and even the forms of expression, 

 peculiar to Linnaeus, applied to the development of 

 a new, happy, and fruitful train of ideas. Nor did he 

 attempt to conceal how much he owed his master : 

 he has left to posterity, perhaps, the most important 

 part of the existing materials for a complete bio- 

 graphy of the great student of nature. From his in- 

 tercourse with him he derived his first notions of his 

 system, of arranging insects according to the organs 

 of the mouth ; and he endeavoured to persuade Lin- 

 naaus to make use of it in the new edition of his 

 Sy sterna Naturae, which he, however, declined doing. 

 Fabricius obtained, soon after, the situation of 

 professor of natural history in the university of 

 Kiel, and from this time devoted himself entirely to 

 his favourite study. In 1775 appeared his System 

 of Entomology, which gave to this science an entire- 

 ly new form. Two years afterwards, he developed, 

 in a second work, the characters of the classes and 

 orders, and demonstrated in the prolegomena the ad- 

 vantages of his method. In 1778, he published his 

 Philosophia Entomologica,vrritten upon the plan of the 

 well known Philosophia Bot. of Linnaeus. From this 

 time till his death, during a period of 30 years, he 

 was constantly occupied in extending his system, and 

 in publishing it, under various forms, in works of 

 different titles. He travelled almost every year 

 through some part of Europe, examined the museums, 

 made acquaintance with the learned, and described 

 with indefatigable industry the new species of insects 

 which he was so fortunate as to discover. But, as 

 the number of species increased beneath his ever 

 active pen, the distinctions of the divisions and classes 

 became more obscure and arbitrary ; and, in this re- 

 spect, his later writings are inferior to the first. 

 The foundation he had assumed was excellent ; it 

 could not. however, lead him, as he supposed, to a 



