Buteo

the name of a family of the patrician Fabia gens. This name, which signifies a kind of hawk, was originally given to a member of this gens, because the bird had on one occasion settled upon his ship with a favourable omen. (Plin. Nat. 10.8. s. 10.) We are not told which of the Fabii first obtained this surname, but it was probably one of the Fabii Ambusti. [Ambustus.]

1. N. Fabius Buteo, M. F. M. N., consul B. C. 247, in the first Punic war, was employed in the siege of Drepanum. In 224 he was magister equitum to the dictator L. Caecilius Metellus. (Zonar. 8.16; Fast. Capit.)

2. M. Fabius Buteo, M. F. M. N., brother apparently of the preceding, was consul B. C. 245. Florus says (2.2. §§ 30, 31), that he gained a naval victory over the Carthaginians and afterwards suffered shipwreck; but this is a mistake, as we know from Polybius, that the Romans had no fleet at that time. In 216 he was elected dictator without a master of the knights, in order to fill up the vacancies in the senate occasioned by the battle of Cannae: he added 177 new members to the senate, and then laid down his office. (Liv. 23.22, 23; Plut. Fab. Max. 9.) We learn from Livy, who calls him the oldest of the ex-censors, that he had filled the latter office; and it is accordingly conjectured that he was the colleague of C. Aurelius Cotta in the censorship, B. C. 241. In the Fasti Capitolini the name of Cotta's colleague has disappeared.

3. Fabius Buteo, son of the preceding, was accused of theft, and killed in consequence by his own father. (Oros. 4.13.) This event, from the order in which it is mentioned by Orosius, must have happened shortly before the second Punic war.

4. M. Fabius Buteo, curule aedile B. C. 203, and praetor 201, when he obtained Sardinia as his province. (Liv. 30.26, 40.)

5. Q. Fabius Buteo, praetor B. C. 196, obtained the province of Further Spain. (Liv. 33.24, 26.)

6. Q. Fabius Buteo, praetor B. C. 181, obtained the province of Cisalpine Gaul, and had his command prolonged the following year. In 179 he was appointed one of the triumvirs for founding a Latin colony in the territory of the Pisani, and in 168 one of the quinqueviri to settle the disputes between the Pisani and Lunenses respecting the boundaries of their lands. (Liv. 40.18, 36, 43, 45.13.)

7. N. Fabius Buteo, praetor B. C. 173, obtained the province of Nearer Spain, but died at Massilia on his way to the province. (Liv. 41.33, 42.1, 4.)

8. (Q.) Fabius Buteo, son of the brother of P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the younger, must have been the son of Q. Fabius, who was adopted by Q. Fabius Maximus, the conqueror of Hannibal. Buteo was elected quaestor in B. C. 1 34, and was entrusted by his uncle, Scipio, with the command of the 4000 volunteers who enlisted at Rome to serve under Scipio in the war against Numantia. (V. Max. 8.15.4; Appian, App. Hisp. 84.)

a rhetorician in the first century of the Christian era, is frequently mentioned by the elder Seneca, who tells us, that he was a pupil of Porcius Latro, and a dry declaimer, but that he divided all his subjects well. (Controv. 1, 6, 7, 13, &c.)