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Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, the delaying general, has given his name to a military strategy using attritional tactics, as well as a philosophical approach which could best be described as ‘softly, softly, catchee monkey’.

A member of a prominent Roman family, when the Carthaginians under Hannibal attacked down through Italy in the Second Punic War, Fabius made it his raison de guerre that it was better to retreat slowly and deny the enemy resources rather than risk everything in a single battle.

When the Roman Army was defeated at Lake Trasimene in June 217BC, Fabius was made ‘dictator’ which, in ancient Rome, was an honourable office that gave one man power to run the city during a crisis.

He refused to confront Hannibal, and his Fabian strategy was not popular, so that the dictator was given the nickname ‘cunctator’ which is the Latin for ‘delayer’. But by law, Fabius could not remain dictator permanently and the following year new generals led the Roman Army to an even greater defeat at Cannae in August 216BC. Fabius duly came back into power and this time the Romans listened to him, so that Hannibal was frustrated at every turn, but never in all-out battle, as he tried to take over the whole Italian peninsula. It took ten years, but the Carthaginians eventually went home.

Fabius was acclaimed as the ‘Shield of Rome’ by the time of his death at the age of 76 or 77 in 203BC, and the following year Scipio led the Romans over to Carthage in North Africa and defeated them at the Battle of Zama, ending the war decisively in Rome’s favour.

Fabius also lends his name to the Fabian Society, the British organisation which promotes the advance of democratic socialism through gradual reform. That an Italian ‘dictator’ gave his name to a modern, left-wing movement in Britain shows you how wide-ranging eponyms can be.