14. Quintilius VARUS, probably the son of No. 13, was accused by Domitius Afer in A.D. 27. (Tac. Hist. iv. 66.) He is called by Tacitus the propinquus of the emperor Tiberius; and we learn from Seneca, who had heard Varus declaiming, that he was the son-in-law of Germanicus. (Senec. Controv. 4.) Varus may also have been called the propinquus of Tiberius, because his mother Claudia Pulchra was the sobrina of Agrippina. (Tac. Ann. iv. 52, 66.)

VARUS, C. VI'BIUS, whose name occurs only on coins, a specimen of which is annexed. On the obverse is the head of M. Antonius, and on the reverse Venus holding a figure of Victory in one hand and a cornucopia in the other. This Varas must have been triumvir of the mint or have held some magistracy after the death of Julius Caesar and the commencement of the triumvirate, as is shown by the beard of M. Antonius, which he allowed to grow at the beginning of the trium

VIBIV

aware of his danger. He resolved to destroy almost all his baggage and to make for the strong fortress of Aliso, which had been erected by Drusus on the Lippe. His first camp was probably in the neighbourhood of Salzuffeln ; and in order to reach Aliso he had to force his way through the pass in the neighbourhood of Detmold. His second day's march was one uninterrupted fight from morning to night, and the contracted extent of the camp, which he pitched at the close of the day, told Germanicus that his numbers had been already greatly reduced. On the morning of the third day Varus continued his march. His difficulties increased more and more. The roads were rendered almost impassable by the rain which descended in torrents: but nevertheless the Romans struggled on, though with continually increasing losses, and at last emerged from the woods into the open country, probably in the neighbourhood of Kreuzburg and Osterholz. Here, however, the main force of the Germans was ready to receive them. With di-virate. (Eckhel, vol. v. p. 342.) The name of Vibius minished numbers and exhausted bodies, they were Varus occurs in the reign of Hadrian: there was a unable to penetrate through the vast hosts which C. Vibius Juventius Varus, who was consul in surrounded them on all sides. The fight at length A. D. 134. became a slaughter; the Romans could no longer preserve their ranks; Varus in despair put an end to his own life. Very few of the Romans succeeded in escaping to Aliso. Most perished on the field, but several were taken prisoners. Of these the most distinguished were sacrificed by Arminius to the gods of his country at altars in the forests; and the remainder were reduced to slavery. The ferocity of the enemy did not even spare the dead; the corpse of Varus was mangled, and his head cut off and forwarded, as a sign of victory, to Maroboduus, king of the Marcomanni, who, however, sent it to Augustus. The defeat of Varus was followed by the loss of all the Roman possessions between the Weser and the Rhine, and the latter river again became the boundary of the Roman dominions. When the news of this defeat reached Rome, the whole city was thrown into consternation; and Augustus, who was both weak and aged, gave way to the most violent grief, tearing his garment and calling upon Varus to give him back his legions. Orders were issued as if the very empire was in danger; and Tiberius was despatched with a veteran army to the Rhine. (Dion Cass. Ivi. 18-25; Vell. Pat. ii. 117-120; Suet. Aug. 23, Tib. 16, 17; Flor. iv. 12; Tac. Ann. i. 60, 61, 71.) The history of the defeat of Varus has been treated by a great number of German writers, who have maintained very different views respecting the locality of his defeat. The best account in a brief compass is given by Höckh, Römische Geschichte, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 84, foll., and by Ukert, Geographie der Griechen und Römer, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 124, foll., in the latter of which works a list of all the treatises on the subject is given.

The following coin was struck by Varus when he was proconsul of Syria.

COIN OF P. QUINTILIUS VARUS.

COIN OF C. VIBIUS VARUS.

VA'SIUS, T. one of the conspirators against Q. Cassius Longinus, propraetor of Further Spain, in B. c. 48. (Hirt. B. Alex. 42.) [LONGINUS, No. 15.]

VA'TIA, the name of a family of the Servila Gens.

1. P. SERVILIUS C. F. M. N. VATIA, surnamed ISAURICUS, was the grandson of Q. Metellus Macedonicus. (Cic. pro Dom. 47.) He is first mentioned in B. c. 100, where he took up arms with the other Roman nobles against Saturninus. (Cie. pro C. Rabir. perd. 7.) He was raised to the consulship by Sulla in B. C. 79, along with Ap. Clandius Pulcher, and in the following year (B. c. 78) was sent as proconsul to Cilicia, with a powerful fleet and army, in order to clear the seas of the pirates, whose ravages now spread far and wide. He was a man of integrity, resolution, and energy, and carried on the war with great ability and success. At first he sailed against the pirates, and defeated them in a naval engagement off the coast of Cilicia. The pirates then abandoned the sea and took refuge in their strongholds among the mountains which skirt the southern coast of Asia Minor. Servilius proceeded to attack their fortresses, which were defended with the greatest obstinacy and courage. We have only fragmentary accounts of this war, which occupied Servilius about three years; but it appears that the Romans experienced all the sufferings and dangers to which regular troops are generally exposed in a warfare among mountains defended by brave and hardy inhabitants. Servilius, after landing, first took Olympus, a town of Lycia, situated on a mountain of the same name, which was resolutely defended by a robber chief, called Zenicetus, who perished with his followers in the flames of the place. He next

last days of the republic. Cicero, in his oration | of Vatinius in the speech which has come down. against Vatinius, which has come down to us, to us. Nevertheless, he carefully avoids saying a describes him as one of the greatest scamps and word against Caesar, of whom Vatinius had been villains that ever lived; and without believing all only the instrument. The elections at Rome this that Cicero says against him, it appears pretty year were attended with the most serious riots. certain that he was, like most other public men The aristocracy strained every nerve to prevent the of his age, possessed of little or no principle, and election of Pompey and Crassus to the consulship; ready to sell his services to the highest bidder. and so great were the tumults that it was not till His personal appearance was unprepossessing; his the beginning of the following year (B. C. 55) that face and neck were covered with swellings, to the elections took place, and Pompey and Crassus which Cicero alludes more than once, calling him were declared consuls. [Vol. III. p. 486, a.] Not the struma civitatis. (Cic. pro Sest. 65; comp. succeeding in securing the consulship for their own Plut. Cic. 9; struma Vatinii," ad Att. ii. 9; party, the aristocracy brought forward M. Cato as "fuit strumosa facie et maculoso corpore," Schol. a candidate for the praetorship; but Pompey and Bob. pro Sest. p. 310, ed. Orelli.) Vatinius com. Crassus, aware that the election of so formidable menced public life as quaestor in B. C. 63. According an opponent to so high a dignity would prove a to Cicero he owed his election simply to the in- serious obstacle to their projects, used all their influence of one of the consuls of the preceding year, fluence to secure the praetorship for Vatinius. To and was returned last on the list. Cicero, who make the matter more certain, they obtained a was consul, sent him to Puteoli to prevent the decree of the senate, in virtue of which those who gold and silver from being carried away from that might be elected praetors were to enter on their place; but his extortions were so oppressive that office forthwith, without letting the time fixed by the inhabitants were obliged to complain of his law intervene, during which the magistrates elect conduct to the consul. After his quaestorship he might be prosecuted for bribery. Having thus went to Spain as legatus of C. Cosconius, the pro- removed one obstacle, they employed their money consul, where, according to Cicero, he was again most freely, and by bribery as well as by force guilty of robbery and extortion. In B. c. 59 he defeated Cato and carried the election of Vatinius. was tribune of the plebs and sold his services to (Plut. Cat. 42, Pomp. 52.) During his year of Caesar, who was then consul along with Bibulus. office (B. c. 55) Vatinius was safe from proseenHe took an active part in all the measures which tion; but in the following year (B. c. 54) he was were brought forward in this year, many of which accused of bribery by C. Licinius Calvus. It aphe proposed himself. [CAESAR, p. 543.] Cicero pears, though the matter is involved in some obaccuses him of setting the auspices at defiance, of scurity, that Licinius had accused Vatinius twice offering violence to the consul Bibulus, of filling before, once in B. c. 58 of Vis, on account of his the forum with soldiers, and of crushing the veto proceedings in his tribunate (comp. Cic. in Fatin. of his colleagues in the tribunate by force of arms; 14, with the Schol. Bob. in Vatin. p. 323, ed. all of which accusations we can readily believe, Orelli), and again in B. c. 56, about the same time as he was the most active partizan of Caesar among that Cicero also attacked him. (Comp. Cic. in the magistrates of the year. It was Vatinius who Vatin. 4, with the Schol. Bob. p. 316; Cic. ad proposed the bill to the people, by which Caesar Q. Fr. i. 2. § 4.) The most celebrated prosecution received the provinces of Cisalpine Gaul and Il- of Licinius, however, was in B. c. 54, and the lyricum for five years, to which the senate after-speech which he delivered on this occasion is menwards added the province of Transalpine Gaul. It was during his tribunate that Vatinius brought forward the iuformer L. Vettius, who accused many of the most distinguished men in the state, and among others Cicero, of a plot against the life of Pompey. [VETTIUS.]

In return for these services Vatinius was appointed by Caesar one of his legates, but he did not remain long in Gaul, as he was for the present intent upon gaining the higher honours of the state. Notwithstanding the patronage of Caesar, he was unsuccessful in his first application for the praetorship, and he did not even obtain the votes of his own tribe, the Sergia, which had never previously failed to vote in favour of their own tribesman. In B. c. 56 he appeared as a witness against Milo and Sestius, two of Cicero's friends, who had taken a leading part in obtaining his recal from banishment. Cicero had long had a grudge against Vatinius, because he had induced Vettius to accuse him of being privy to the plot against Pompey's life; and his resentment was now increased by the testimony Vatinius had given against Milo and Sestius. The trial of Milo occurred earlier in the year than that of Sestius. Cicero took no notice of the conduct of Vatinius in the former case, but when he came forward against Sextius also, on whose acquittal Cicero had set his heart, the orator made a vehement attack upon the character

tioned in terms of the highest praise by Quintilian
and others. His oratory produced such a powerful
impression upon all who heard it, that Vatinius
started up in the middle of the speech, and inter-
rupted him with the exclamation, "
I ask you
judges, if I am to be condemned because the ac-
cuser is eloquent." (Senec. Controv. iii. 19.) On
this occasion, to the surprise of all his friends,
Cicero, who had only two years before attacked
Vatinius in such unmeasured terms, came forward
to defend him. The protection of the triumvirs,
rather than the eloquence of his advocate, secured
the acquittal of Vatinius. Cicero's conduct in de-
fending Vatinius is not difficult to explain, and he
has himself given an elaborate justification of him-
self in an interesting letter to Lentulus Spinther,
the proconsul of Cilicia, who had written to ask him
his reasons for defending Vatinius (ad Fam. i. 9).
The plain fact was, that Cicero had offended
Caesar by his former attack upon Vatinius, and
that, fearing to be again handed over by the tri-
umvirs to the vengeance of Clodius, he now, in
opposition to his conscience and sense of duty, as-
serted what he knew to be false in order to secure
the powerful protection of Caesar and Pompey.
(Respecting the accusations of Vatinius by Licin us
Calvus, see Meyer, Orator. Roman. Fragm. p. 474,
foll., 2nd ed.)

From this time Vatinius aud Cicero appear on

which followed the 30th of the fourth, since this is the point at which the precepts regarding naval affairs commence.

after dedicating his arms to the temple of Hercules at Fundi in Latium. (Hor. Ep. i 1. 5, with the Schol.)

3. VEIANIUS NIGER, a tribune of the soldiers
under Nero, put Subrius Flavus to death. (Tac.
Ann. xv. 67.)
[POM-

VEIANTA'NUS POMPO'NIUS.
PONIUS, p. 495, a.]

VEIENTO, was left in the command of Syria by Bibulus, when he quitted the province in B. C. 50. (Cic. ad Att. vii. 3. § 5.) Manutius supposes that Veiento was the quaestor of Bibulus, but we know that Sallust held this office (Cic. ad Fam.

We can speak with little respect of this compilation. The usages of periods the most remote from each other, of the early ages of the commonwealth, of the era of Marius and Caesar, of the first emperors and of the successors of Constantine, are mixed together into one confused mass, and not unfrequently, we have reason to suspect, are blended with arrangements which never existed except in the fancy of the author. From the circumstance that we are here presented with something like a regular and systematic exposition of the Romanii. 17); and we may therefore conclude that art of war, the statements have been frequently adopted without modification in manuals of antiquities; and notwithstanding the warning of Salmasius, have been too often quoted with respect by scholars who ought to have been fully aware of their worthlessness. That it is possible to glean some curious and even important information from these pages, may be admitted, but we must act with the utmost caution, and scrutinise with jealous eye every addition thus made to our store of knowledge. We know nothing of the personal history of Vegetius, but it has been inferred from the tone in which he speaks of the military oath (ii. 5) that he was a Christian.

Veiento was the legatus of Bibulus. The gentile name of Veiento is not mentioned, but it is not improbable that it was Fabricius, and that he was an ancestor of the following person.

VEIENTO, FABRI'ĈIUS, was accused in the reign of Nero, A. D. 62, because he had published many libels against the fathers and the priests in books to which he had given the name of Codicilli; and his accuser Fabius Geminus added that he had sold the honours which the emperor was accustomed to grant. Nero thereupon banished him from Italy and ordered his books to be burnt. He is probably the same as the A. Fabricius, whom Dion Cassius mentions as praetor in the reign of Nero. (Tac. Ann. xiv. 50; Dion Cass. Ixi. 6.) Veiento afterwards returned to Rome, and became in the reign of Domitian one of the most infamous informers and flatterers of that tyrant. He also enjoyed the intimate friendship of Nerva. Aurelius Victor says that Veiento held the consulship under Domitian; but his name does not occur in the Fasti, nor is his consulship mentioned by any other ancient writer. (Juv. iii. 185, iv. 113, vi. 113, Plin. Ep. iv. 22 ; Aurel. Vict. Epit. 12; Plin. Ep. ix. 13.)

The three earliest editions of Vegetius are without date and have no name of place or printer, but are known, from the researches of bibliographers, to have been printed respectively at Utrecht, Paris, and Cologne between the years 1473-1478. The first with a date is that which appeared at Rome, 4to. 1487, and was reprinted in 1494. The best edition is that of Schwebelius (4to. Norimberg, 1767), containing a selection from the commentaries of Stewechius and Scriverius, together with a French translation. It was reprinted (omitting the translation) with additional remarks by Ouden-Müller) to mean "little Jupiter" (comp. Ov. Fast. dorp and Bessel, 8vo. Argent. 1806. This treatise will be found also in all the collections of the Latin "Veteres de Re militari Scriptores," of which the best edition is that printed at Wesel (Vesalia Clivorum), 8vo. 1670.

There is a version of Vegetius in German, printed as early as 1474, and in French, printed in 1488, but in neither is the name of the translator given. In 1489 Caxton published "The fayt of armes and chyvalry from Vegetius," to which is appended the following curious notice: "Thus endeth this boke, which Xyne of Pyse (Christina of Pisa) "made and drewe out of the boke named Vegecius de Re Militari, which boke, beyng in frensche, was delyvered to me Willm Caxton by the most crysten kynge, henry vii, the xxxiij day of Janyuere, the iiij yere of his regne, and desired and wylled me to translate this said boke, and reduce it into our english and natural tonge, and to put it in emprynte. Whiche translacyon was finysshed the viij day of Juyll the said yere and emprynted the xiiij day of Juyll next followyng, and ful fynyshed." [W. R.] VEHI'LIUS, praetor B. C. 44, refused to receive a province from Antony, and said that he would obey the senate alone. (Cic. Phil. iii. 10.) | VEIA'NIUS, 1. Two brothers of this name belonging to the Faliscus ager are mentioned by Varro (R. R. iii. 16. § 10).

2. A celebrated gladiator in the time of Horace, who had retired to a small estate in the country,

|

VEIOVIS, is explained by Festus (p. 379, ed.

iii. 445); while others interpret it "the destructive Jupiter," and identify him with Pluto. (Gell. v. 12; Macrob. Sat. iii. 9.) But Veiovis and Vedius (Martian. Capell. ii. p. 40), which are only dif ferent forms of the same name, seem to designate an Etruscan divinity of a destructive nature, whose fearful lightnings produced deafness in those who were to be struck by them, even before they were actually hurled. (Amm. Marc. xvii. 10.) His temple at Rome stood between the Capitol and the Tarpeian rock; he was represented as a youthful god armed with arrows, and his festival fell before the nones of March. (Gell. l. c.; Vitruv. iv. 8.) [L.S.]

Q. VELA'NIUS, a tribune of the soldiers, whom Caesar sent in B. c. 56 among the Veneti for the purpose of obtaining corn. (Caes. B. G. iii. 7.)

VELEDA, a prophetic virgin, by birth belonged to the Bructeri, and was regarded as a divine being by most of the nations in central Germany in the reign of Vespasian. She inhabited a lofty tower in the neighbourhood of the river Luppia (Lippe); but none save her own immediate relations were allowed to enter her presence, in order to preserve the veneration in which she was held. She encouraged Civilis in his revolt against the Romans, and predicted the success which he at first obtained, but she was afterwards taken prisoner and carried to Rome. (Tac. Hist. iv. 61, 65, v. 22, 24, Germ. 8; Stat Silv. i. 4. 90, captivasque preces Velědae; Dion Cass. Ixvii. 5, who makes the penultimate long, Beλýda.)