Gaius Fabricius Luscinus Monocularis ("the one-eyed", also spelled Caius Fabricius Lucinus), son of Gaius, was said to have been the first of the Fabricii to move to ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

, his family originating from Aletrium.

In 284 BC

284 BC

Year 284 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Tucca and Denter/Dentatus...

 he was one of the ambassadors to Tarentum

Taranto

Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....

, successfully keeping peace, and was elected consul

Consul

Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...

 in 282 BC

282 BC

Year 282 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Luscinus and Papus...

 where he saved Thurii

Thurii

Thurii , called also by some Latin writers Thurium , for a time also Copia and Copiae, was a city of Magna Graecia, situated on the Tarentine gulf, within a short distance of the site of Sybaris, whose place it may be considered as having taken...

 from the Sabellians

Sabellians

Sabellians is a collective ethnonym for a group of Italic peoples or tribes inhabiting central and southern Italy at the time of the rise of Rome. The name was first applied by Niebuhr and encompassed the Sabines, Marsi, Marrucini and Vestini. Pliny in one passage says the Samnites were also...

. After the Romans were defeated by Pyrrhus

Pyrrhus of Epirus

Pyrrhus or Pyrrhos was a Greek general and statesman of the Hellenistic era. He was king of the Greek tribe of Molossians, of the royal Aeacid house , and later he became king of Epirus and Macedon . He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome...

 at Heraclea

Battle of Heraclea

The Battle of Heraclea took place in 280 BC between the Romans under the command of Consul Publius Valerius Laevinus and the combined forces of Greeks from Epirus, Tarentum, Thurii, Metapontum, and Heraclea under the command of King Pyrrhus of Epirus....

, Fabricius negotiated peace terms with Pyrrhus

Pyrrhus

Pyrrhus or Pyrrhos or Pyrros may refer to the following figures from Greek history and mythology:* Pyrrhus or Neoptolemus, son of Achilles* Pyrrhus of Epirus , famous king, to whom the term Pyrrhic victory alludes...

 and perhaps the ransom and exchange of prisoners; Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

 reports that Pyrrhus was impressed by his inability to bribe Fabricius, and released the prisoners even without a ransom. Fabricius was consul a second time in 278 BC

278 BC

Year 278 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Luscinus and Papus...

, and once again successful against the Samnites, Lucanians and Bruttians. He also defeated Tarentum's army after Pyrrhus' departure from Italy to Sicily.

Fabricius was elected censor in 275 BC

275 BC

Year 275 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Dentatus and Caudinus...

.

The tales of Fabricius are the standard ones of austerity and incorruptibility, similar to those told of Curius Dentatus

Curius Dentatus

Manius Curius Dentatus , son of Manius, was a three-time consul and a plebeian hero of the Roman Republic, noted for ending the Samnite War. According to Pliny, he was born with teeth, thus earning the cognomen Dentatus, "Toothy."...

, and Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

 often cites them together; it is difficult to make out a true personality behind the virtues. On the other hand, Valerius Maximus says that he and his co-consul/co-censor Quintus Aemilius Papus

Quintus Aemilius Papus

Quintus Aemilius Papus , a member of the gens Aemilia of the branch cognomated Papus, was a Roman general and statesman....

kept "silver in the[ir] homes... Each of them had a dish for the gods and a salt cellar, but Fabricius was more elegant because he chose to put a little pedestal of horn under his dish." [Valerius Maximus, Chapter Four "Poverty" 4.3]