punic wars

I am reading a book about the punic wars at the moment. I have got as far as the events of the 2nd war - the famous Hannibal over the mountains with elephants one. It is pretty dry stuff and hard to read quickly but all pretty interesting. After Hannibal pwned them a couple of times in battles in Italy the Romans put Quintus Fabius Maximus as one of their consuls in charge of the Roman army. Apparently his good idea was not fighting Hannibal head on like they had done before when they lost badly, but following him around at a distance allowing him to pillage the land but pressing him a bit as he did so hoping he would run out of supplies and have to break up his army. Before Fabius took command he had the nickname of "verrucosus", which translates as spotty. This nickname came about thanks to his prominent facial wart. But after he did well against the Carthaginians he earned the nickname "cunctator", meaning "the delayer." The delayer is a rubbish nickname, although slightly better than spotty admittedly.

Just a little bit of historical interest for you there. In no way did i write about this because i found his second nickname slightly funny because it sounds a bit rude. That would just be immature.