Fabricius

“ Fabricius, instead of appearing terrified, or even astonished at the spectacle, sat quietly in his seat, to all appearance entirely unmoved, and, turning to Pyrrhus with an air of the utmost composure, said coolly, "You see that you make no impression upon me, either by your gold yesterday or by your beast to-day." ”

“ Fabricius was a fine specimen of the sturdy Roman character. He cultivated his farm with his own hands, and, like his contemporary Curius, was celebrated for his incorruptible integrity. The king attempted in vain to work upon his cupidity and his fears. He steadily refused the large sums of money offered by Pyrrhus; and when an elephant, concealed behind him by a curtain, waved his trunk over his head, Fabricius remained unmoved. Such respect did his conduct inspire, that Pyrrhus attempted to persuade him to enter into his service and accompany him to Greece. The object of the embassy failed. ”

“ I told her so,’ said Cestus.
‘The memory of a liar should always be good,’ cried Afer; ‘this vagabond’s memory is only equalled by his lies—they are all of a prodigious nature. Yet I doubt if they are as monstrous as the credulity which sucks them in.’
‘What more remains to ask these people, Fabricius? Question them if you will,’ said Tiberius.
‘I have nothing to add to what your highness has ably said,’ replied Fabricius, rising from his seat. ”

“ Seek him, and bring him hither back with thee, that I may tell him what I did, for my mind torments me more than my crushed body. He had a granddaughter, a little child—a little goddess; I can tell him of that child—bid him come with haste! Fourteen years ago I stole her from his door and sold her. She yet lives—a slave!”’
In spite of himself; in spite of the numberless plausible tales and previous disappointments, Fabricius felt his heart beat violently, and a tremor seize his limbs. Cestus’s small keen eyes noted the change of colour on his cheek. ”

“ Fabricius has at last, he thinks, fair grounds for supposing he has recovered the missing girl. Be it our business to inquire into the proofs.’
‘To what purpose, uncle?’ said Afer, with angry impatience. ‘Is it not absurd to ground a belief upon a mere resemblance to a graven gem? It can only end in fruitless disgust, as hitherto. Cease to harass yourself any longer by pursuing an ignis fatuus; be guided by me, I pray you. Leave these impostors to me, as you were wont, and I will unmask them.’
‘I pray you, Caesar, proceed,’ said Fabricius briefly, without taking any notice of his nephew. ”

“ Fabricius, disgusted at the man's treachery, brought his colleague to share his views, and in haste sent off a letter to Pyrrhus, bidding him be on his guard. The letter ran as follows: "Caius Fabricius and Quintus Æmilius, the Roman consuls, greet King Pyrrhus. You appear to be a bad judge both of your friends and of your enemies. You will perceive, by reading the enclosed letter which has been sent to us, that you are fighting against good and virtuous men, and trusting to wicked and treacherous ones. ”

“ Fabricius could observe, and he could describe; but he wanted the combining intellect that infers, the imagination that leads to new ideas—to discovery. Though he did little himself, however, to advance the sum of human knowledge, he proved a tooth in the wheel that has since put in motion the whole machinery of modern medical science. He it was who sowed the seed, little dreaming of its kind, which, finding one spot of congenial soil, sprung up a harvest that has continued to nurture the world of physiological science to the present hour. ”

“ Thereupon Fabricius passed his open hands from his ears to his eyes, then down to his nose, his mouth, his throat, and finally to the lower part of his belly; then he replied to the envoys: “So long as I can restrain and control all those members which I have touched, I shall never lack anything; therefore I cannot accept money, for which I have no use, from those who, I am sure, do have use for it.”
15 What a tiresome and utterly hateful fault is vain and empty loquacity, and how often it has been censured in deservedly strong language by the greatest Greek and Latin writers. ”

“ Fabricius, Caius, a Roman of the old school, distinguished for the simplicity of his manners and his incorruptible integrity; his name has become the synonym for a poor man who in public life deals honourably and does not enrich himself; was consul 282 B.C.
Fabricius or Fabrizio, Girolamo, a famous Italian anatomist, born at Aquapendente; became professor at Padua in 1565, where he gained a world-wide reputation as a teacher ”

“ At length Fabricius raised his head and spoke in a broken voice, ‘I am an old man and you must excuse my weakness, friend—the sight of these trifles tries me hard.’
‘Drink!’ said Cestus, filling a cup; ‘there is nothing like good wine to cheer one. ”

“ Between Fabricius, honoured by and adding honour to the dignity of a Knight of St. Mark, and Harvey, a fast friendship seems to have sprung up, or rather that loving relationship which is so beautiful between the youth scarce twenty and the old man of well-nigh seventy years. ”

“ When these tidings reached them, for the first time Damaris uttered a cry of despair. “Alas! alas!” she said, “too surely our Marius is slain, or he would have saved her.”
But Fabricius shook his head.
“Fond mother’s thought! Against such a flood of furious savagery Marius would have been as powerless as when he lay a babe in thine arms;” and then, with a flash of the old patrician fire, he added, “It is not Digna only, it is our old Rome, who chose death rather than dishonour at Aquileia; our Rome has fallen, she is dead, but never could she have perished save by suicide. ”

“ He is an honest farmer-citizen of the good old sort. Fabricius is another, famed especially for his calm [138] defiance of the threats and cajolery of Pyrrhus, and impervious to bribes. Both these traditions received much legendary colouring in course of time. The passage bearing most directly on my present inquiry is a fragment [589] of Dionysius, in which Fabricius is spurning the offers of king Pyrrhus, who is very anxious to secure the good man’s services as his chief minister on liberal terms. ”

“ As a laborious and accurate critic on philological matters, Fabricius merits the highest commendation such attainments can deserve; but when he leaves the beaten road in which nature designed him to walk, and attempts the tractless paths of philosophy, he perpetually stumbles, and often falls on the ground. The wings of philology, like those of the swallow, were never destined for a lofty flight:—it must be the eagle wing of genius, which can alone soar to the sun of philosophy. The Greek and Latin edition of this valuable work, was published at Hamburgh, by Æmilius Portus, 1618, folio. ”

“ The king, struck with admiration of his conduct, is reported to have exclaimed on the occasion, "That excellent Fabricius is a man who can less easily be diverted from the path of honour, than the sun from its course." ”

“ FABRICIUS, HIERONYMUS [Fabrizio, Geronimo] (1537–1619) , Italian anatomist and embryologist, was surnamed Acquapendente from the episcopal city of that name, where he was born in 1537. At Padua, after a course of philosophy, he studied medicine under G. Fallopius, whose successor as teacher of anatomy and surgery he became in 1562. From the senators of Venice he received numerous honours, and an anatomical theatre was built by them for his accommodation. ”

“ After a time Damaris returned with Fabricius.
“What are all these treasures?” Fabricius asked; and Dewi answered through Baithene—
“These, my lord, are the ransoms sent by the Irish king and his people to the prince and princess, their son and daughter, that they may be restored to their home and their land.”
“I require no ransom,” Fabricius said. “I have always thought of these noble captives as free-born, and high-born as myself;” and going to a chest he drew out a parchment. “This is the deed of manumission,” he said, “setting free according to our law those who have been taken captive. ”

“ The story that Pyrrhus attempted to frighten Fabricius by the sight of an elephant is probably a fiction. In 278 Fabricius was elected consul for the second time, and was successful in negotiating terms of peace with Pyrrhus, who sailed away to Sicily. Fabricius afterwards gained a series of victories over the Samnites, the Lucanians and the Bruttians, and on his return to Rome received the honour of a triumph. ”

“ Of course it means death in some shape or other.’ The face of Cestus grew dark and sullen as a thundercloud, and he folded his arms across his chest without a word.
‘What is to be done?’ said Fabricius, the extremity of distress breaking down the repugnance and indignation with which he regarded his companion.
‘The luck seems against us,’ answered the Suburan bitterly; ‘he must have played the rash fool. At any rate, your letter shows that I am to be believed when I make you a statement. All we can do is to get there as fast as we can and make the best of a bad job. ”

“ Methinks I yet hear him laughing and speaking. We parted at the foot of the Capitoline, and never did I see him again till now.”
“Oh, fate of man!” quoth Xerophrastes; “how uncertain is life, how certain death! Without doubt, young Fabricius had as little thought of dying as any of your company; and yet, see now, he is arrayed for the last time, and this juvenile gown, which he should so soon have laid aside for the manly, is destined to be consumed with him.” ”

“ A Roman general named Fabricius (Fab-ris’-yus) was sent to the enemy's camp to arrange for the exchange of prisoners–that is, for every hundred prisoners set free by the enemy the Romans would set free a hundred men of Epirus, and so on. King Pyrrhus had a long talk with this Roman captain, and was pleased with the conversation, and offered him a large sum of gold, which was refused. Next day the king thought to strike terror into the Roman's soul. He ordered that the largest of the elephants should be placed behind a curtain of the room where he and Fabricius were to consult. ”

“ However, the Romans wanted to treat about the prisoners Pyrrhus had taken, and they sent Caius Fabricius to the Greek camp for the purpose. Kineas reported him to be a man of no wealth, but esteemed as a good soldier and an honest man. Pyrrhus tried to make him take large presents, but nothing would Fabricius touch; and then, in the hope of alarming him, in the middle of a conversation the hangings of one side of the tent suddenly fell, and disclosed the biggest of all the elephants, who waved his trunk over Fabricius and trumpeted frightfully. ”

“ It is only another and more flagrant case of my infatuation, as my nephew calls it. I shall fall under the lash of his tongue bravely for it. But what, Centurion, if I give up hope, what need is there of living?’
‘None.’
‘And you, a young man, live vigorously, having copious hope. Ah, I see!’ continued Fabricius, smiling, as he noted [pg 120] the ready colour tinging the sunburnt cheek of the Pretorian, ‘as well as if your shaven cheek had been the delicate red and white of a young girl. ”

“ He was, like the whole powerful family to which he belonged, in principle a rigid and unscrupulous aristocrat; as a magistrate, he, no doubt, reckoned it honourable to hire assassins for the good of the state and would presumably have ridiculed the act of Fabricius towards Pyrrhus as unpractical knight errantry, but he was an inflexible administrator accessible neither to fear nor to corruption, and a judicious and experienced warrior. ”

“ The industrious and careful Fabricius, with a wonderful talent for observation lit not by his own lamp but by that of Aristotle, bears a relation to the master much like that held by Aristotle’s pupil in the flesh, Theophrastus. ”

“ When the sun’s altitude became considerable, Fabricius gave up his observations, which he often continued so long that he was scarcely able, for two days together, to see objects with their usual distinctness. Fabricius speaks of observing the sun by admitting his rays through a small hole into a dark room, and receiving his image on paper; but he says nothing about a lens or a telescope being applied to the hole; and he does not say that he saw the spots of the sun in this way. ”

“ Fabricius said decisively to Damaris. “These four are clearly made for each other.”
“Dost thou see what that would mean for us?” she replied.
“Thou wouldst gain a daughter-in-law after thine heart,” he said.
“But our own Lucia!” she sighed.
“Lucia,” he answered, “would win a husband worthy of her. Where in this corrupt city could we find a son-in-law so good and true, such a man, such a Roman, as Baithene? A new life and order come into the farm, the forest, the household, wherever he is.” ”

“ Then this Fabricius not only did not bring to me my neighbours and friends the citizens of Aletrinum, but he was not able himself any longer to employ them as men eager in his defence, or as witnesses to his character. 57For they and I thought it suitable to our humanity to uphold the cause of a man not entirely a stranger to us, while it was undecided, though suspicious; but to endeavour to upset the decision which had been come to, we should have thought a deed of great impudence. ”

“ Fabricius, one of the Roman ambassadors, he admired so much, that, finding he was poor, he endeavoured to draw him over to his side with the promise of a fourth part of his kingdom, but he was repulsed with disdain by Fabricius. Pyrrhus, therefore, being struck with admiration at the character of the Romans, sent an eminent man. Cineas by name, as ambassador, to ask for peace on reasonable terms, provided that he might retain possession of that part of Italy, of which he had already become master in the war. ”