Quintas Fabius Maximus was a Roman commander and politician during the Second Punic War. He knew from the reports of Roman commanders in the field that it would be difficult to defeat Rome’s arch enemy Hannibal, in open battle. So, Fabius decided to fight a war of delaying tactics. He dispatched various Roman forces into the hills of Italy to tail Hannibal as closely as possible, without engaging him in battle, knowing that the cavalry would be useless in the hills. These troops constantly cut of Hannibal’s supply lines, and harassed him incessantly and without mercy. Although these tactics were unpopular, and viewed as cowardly, they worked. Fabius would make his first and only offensive move of the war in 209 during his fifth consulship, when he captured the city of Tarentum, which Hannibal had captured three years before.
Fabius cautious delaying tactics won him the nickname Cunctator, meaning ‘delayer’. He was also called ‘the shield of Rome’, because his tactics gave Rome time to recover its strength, and take the offensive against the invading Carthaginian army of Hannibal. Today, the word Fabianism has come to mean a gradual or cautious policy.