for the Fabii were at feud with their order, and therefore established for themselves an abode distinct from Rome.[95] It is therefore stated that only one single Fabius, who as a child had been left sick in Rome, had remained behind. Perizonius has sifted this matter before now with able criticism, and has shown how preposterous it is, that three hundred and six strong men should all but one have been childless. This child we again meet with a few years afterwards as already consul. The probability is this, that the number 306 is not indeed symbolical; nor did it comprehend, as Livy has it, merely warriors, nay, leaders only, but the whole of the _Gens Fabia_ engaged in the settlement, women and children included. If we take them to have been three hundred and six men able to bear arms, we should be obliged to estimate the number of the patricians at something beyond all belief. That they had a vast number of clients is not to be doubted; and the circumstance that these emigrated with them, is a remarkable evidence of the nature of the clientship.[96] The destruction of the Fabii at the Cremera is a positive fact; but the accounts of it are different, one being poetical, and the other annalistic. According to the poetical version of the story, the Fabii, relying on the peace concluded with the Etruscans, had gone from the Cremera to Rome, in order to offer a _sacrum gentilicium_ in the city, a rite which indeed had to be performed at Rome, and at which all the _gentiles_ had to be present; and as they were not aware that the Veientines intended any hostility, they had marched without their arms. But the Veientines called on the allies of their race, and beset the road on which the Fabii were travelling; and these were surrounded by thousands, who did not, however, venture to attack them at close quarters, but struck them down from a distance with slings and arrows. The gentilician _Sacrum_ is doubtless the _statum sacrificium_ of the Fabian _gens_ on the Quirinal, which is mentioned in the Gallic calamity.[97]