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The Top Benevolent and Malevolent Dictators From History

Khalid Elhassan November 30, 2020 32 min

Augustus - Ancient Rome — 'The Emperor Augustus Rebukes Cornelius Cinna for His Treachery', by Etienne Jean Delecluze, 1814 - Augustus pardoned Cinna and gave him a government job. Van Go Yourself

19. Fabius Was Appointed Dictator to Save Rome From Hannibal

Hannibal crossing the Alps into Italy. Medium

At the start of the Second Punic War, Hannibal led an army into Italy, and won a series of crushing victories. That threatened Rome’s hold on Italy, as its allies joined Hannibal or declared neutrality. At the time, Fabius was a respected senior statesman. He had been elected Consul in 233 BC and 228 BC, as well as Censor – a highly prestigious position – in 230 BC.

Faced with the dire emergency posed by Hannibal, the Romans appointed Fabius dictator for six months. As seen below, he ended up saving his countrymen from disaster. Little thanks did he get, however: the Romans reviled and abused Fabius while he was saving them, because he did so in a manner that they considered timid and cowardly.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.