Faberius
- the name of a Roman gens, Cic. Att. 12, 25, 1; 15, 13, 3.—Hence,
- II Făbĕrĭānus, a, um, adj., of or belonging to Faberius (a debtor of Cicero): negotium, Cic. Att. 13, 31, 1; cf. id. ib. 13, 29, 3; 12, 31, 2.
1. Seems to have been a debtor of M. Cicero's, since in several of his letters to Atticus (ad Att. 12.21, 25, 51, 13.8), Cicero speaks of him as a person from whom a certain sum was due, and should be demanded, in case of the purchase of some gardens in Rome (Horti Drusiuani, Lamiani, &c.), which Cicero wished to buy. He was however, after a time, disposed to be lenient with Faberius (ad Att. 15.13). If by Meto (in Epist. ad Att. 12.51) Caesar be meant, in allusion to his reformation of the calendar (Suet. Jul. 40), the interest on the money owed by Faberius to Cicero may have been affected by the extension of the current year B. C. 46. Cicero seems to have been cautious of giving offence to Faberius; and if he were the same person with Caesar's private secretary, mentioned below, and the transaction between them, as has been supposed, referred to property sold or confiscated during the civil wars, Cicero's reluctance to enforce payment may in B. C. 45 have been prudent as well as lenient.
2. One of the private secretaries of C. Julius Caesar. After Caesar's assassination, in B. C. 44, Antony attached to himself Faberius, by whose aid lie inserted whatever he chose into the late dictator's papers. Since a decree of the senate had previously declared all Caesar's acts, and his will, valid and bindilig on the state, Antony, by employing one of Caesar's own secretaries, could insert, without danger of detection, whatever he wished into the papers (ὑπομνήματα),since the autoraph of Faberius made it difficult to distinguish the genuine from the spurious memoranda. (Appian, App. BC 3.5.) Dio Cassius (44.3) says that Antony secured the services of Caesar's secretaries, but he does not name Faberius. [W.B.D]