THH 



ORGAN IZ 

 KNOWLEDGE 



GDK 



IN' STORY 

 AND"" PICTURE 



FABIUS, fa'bius, the family name of sev- 

 eral of ancient Rome's most famous men. 



Quint us Fabius Maximus Rullianus, a suc- 

 cessful general, was probably the first of the 

 line to be called Maximus, or The Very Great. 

 This honor he earned in 304 B. c. by excluding 

 freedmen from all but the four city tribes, 

 thus giving the aristocracy control of the co- 

 mitia (which see). 



Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator was the 

 true Maximus of the Fabian gens. His name, 

 Cunctator, or Delayer, he gained by his 

 tactics when, as dictator, he opposed the hordes 

 of Hannibal in 217 B.C., constantly harassing 

 the Carthaginian's provision trains and advance 

 and rear guards, but always refusing to give 

 battle. George Washington has been called 

 The American Fabius, because he, too, won 

 battles by not fighting them. 



Caius Fabius Pictor, as his last name shows, 

 was a painter, and in 302 B. c. made the first 

 Roman paintings of which we know. 



Quintus Fabius Pictor, grandson of the 

 painter, wrote the first prose history of Rome. 



FABLE, fa'b'l. This word, from the Latin 

 fabula, means literally any story, but is com- 

 monly used to describe a very special kind of 

 narrative a short story which is told not just 

 for its own sake, but to point a moral. Usually 

 the characters are animals or inanimate objects, 

 but these are gifted with all the traits of char- 

 acter and -the powers of human beings, and 

 by their wisdom or folly teach useful lessons. 



The point of the lesson is not left to chance, 

 but it is clearly stated at the end in a single 

 outstanding sentence, labeled Moral. Here, for 

 instance, is a typical fable by Aesop, in true 

 fable form: 



The Fox and the Grapes 



A hungry fox once saw some fine, luscious 

 grapes hanging temptingly from a vine a few feet 

 above his head. He leaped and snapped and 

 leaped again, but never could he quite reach the 

 grapes. So many times did he try that he tired 

 himself out completely, and it was some time be- 

 fore he could drag himself limping away. As he 

 went along he grumbled savagely to himself, 

 "What nasty things those grapes are ! No gen- 

 tleman would eat a thing so sour." 



Moral: Every man tries to convince himself 

 that the thing he cannot have is no good. 



This fable, written centuries ago, is to-day 

 a part of the life and thought of civilized 

 people everywhere. If a man sees another man 

 pretending to scorn a certain really desirable 

 thing he might say, "He's trying to make him- 

 self and us believe he doesn't want it, just 

 because he can't have it"; but that would be 

 a cumbersome, heavy way of expressing his 

 meaning. What he does say, with a sly smile, 

 is, "Sour grapes!" and everyone knows what 

 he means. 



What, then, is the difference between a fable 

 and a parable, which may also be described as 

 a short story told not for its own sake but to 

 illustrate a truth? It lies in one very definite 

 point: a parable never bestows on animals or 

 things powers and characteristics which they 



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