Crossword-Solution: DELAYER 7 letters, 7 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 11

They called him _Cunctator_, or "the Delayer." They even accused him of treachery to the cause of Rome.

This mischance made the Romans weary of the Delayer's policy, and when the year was out, and two consuls came in, though one of them, Lucius Æmilius Paulus, would have gone on in the same cautious plan of starving Hannibal out without a battle, the other, Caius Terentius Varro, who commanded on alternate days with him, was determined on a battle.

But he was a roarer, a grumbler; he bawled and ordained, in order to encourage industry and keep his lambs from asking for "raises." Thus also he tried to conceal his own mistakes; when a missing letter for which everybody had been anxiously searching was found on his own desk, instead of in the files, he would blare, "Well, why didn't you tell me you put it on my desk, heh?" He was a delayer also and, in poker patois, a passer of the buck.

There he stayed some time deliberating, like that old delayer, Fabius, on the circumstances around him, desiring to subdue the enemy, who was not only warlike, but so active as usually to keep out of bowshot, rather by manoeuvres and skill than by hazardous engagements.

CHAPTER VIII THE ROME OF FABIUS THE DELAYER When the sun's first rays reddened the walls of the Capitol the life of Rome had been astir for more than an hour.