Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1249

Rh VENOX. VE'LIUS CEREA'LIS, a friend of the younger Pliny, two of whose letters are addressed to him. {Ep. iv.21,'ii. 19.) VE'LIUS LONGUS. [Longus.] VELLEIUS. 1. C. Velleius, a senator, is introduced by Cicero as one of the supporters of the Epicurean philosophy in his De Natura Deorum (i. 6, foil.). He was a friend of the orator L. Cras- 6US. (Cic. de Orat. iii. 21, c?e A'at. Deor. i. 21.) 2. C. Velleius, the grandfather, Velleius the father, and Velleius Capito, the uncle of the historian Velleius Paterculus, together with Pater- culus himself, are all spoken of under Pater- culus. 3. P. Velleius or Vellaeus, commanded an army in the neighbourhood of Thrace in the reign of Tiberius, a. d. 21 (Tac. Ann. iii. 39). VELLOCA'TUS. [Cartimandua.] VENI'LIA, a Roman divinity connected with the winds (venti) and the sea. Virgil and Ovid describe her as a nymph, a sister of Amata, and the wife of Faunus, by whom she became the mother of Tumus, Jutuma, and Canens. (Varro, de Ling. Lut, v. 72 ; Virg. Aen. x. 75 ; Ov. Met. xiv. 334.) [L. S.] VENNO, the name of a family of the Plautia gens, 1. C. Plautius Venno Hypsaeus, con- sul B. c. 347 and 341. [Hypsaeus. No. 1.] 2. L. Plautius Venno, consul b. c. 330 with L. Papirius Crassus, carried on war with his col- league against the Privemates and Fundani. (Liv. viii. 19 ; Diod. xvii. 82.) [Vaccus.] 3. L. Plautius L. p. L. n. Venno, consul B. c. 318 with M. Foslius Flaccinator, received hostages from the Teanenses and Canusini in Apulia. (Fasti Capit. ; Liv. ix. 20 ; Diod. xix. 2.) VENNO'NIUS or VENO'NIUS. In the enumeration of ancient Roman historians given by Cicero (de Leg. i. 2, comp. ad Alt. xii. 3) Venno- nius is placed immediately after Fannius, and he is mentioned by Dionysius in connection with Fabius and Cato. The name does not occur in any other classical work except in the tract Origo Gentis Romanae^ falsely ascribed to Sex. Aurelius Victor [Victor]. We know nothing regarding the life of Vennonius, nor are we acquainted with the title of his book, nor can we determine what period it embraced. We merely gather from Cicero that he composed in Latin, and that his writings were not less meagre than those of other early annalists. (Krause, Vitae et Frugmenta veterum Historicorum Romanorum, 8vo. Berolin. 1833; Orelli, Onomasticon TuUianum s. v. Ven- nonius.) [W. R.] VENNO'NIUS. A few other persons of the name are mentioned by Cicero. 1. Sex. Vennonius, one of the instruments of Verres in oppressing the Sicilians. (Cic. Verr. iii. 39.) 2. C. Vennonius, 2t, negotiator or money lender in Cilicia, was a friend of Cicero, who nevertheless refused him a praefectura which he solicited {ad Att. vi. 1. § 25, vi. 3. § 5, comp. ad Fam. xiii. 72). 3. Vennonius Vindicius, mentioned by Cicero in his oration for Balbus (c. 25). VENOX, C. PLAU'TIUS, censor b. c. 312 with Ap. Claudius Caecus, resigned his office at the end of eighteen months in accordance with the Aemilian law, which had limited the duration of the censorship to that time ; while his colleague, Appius, continued to hold the censorship, in vio- VENTL 1237 lation of the law, and thus gave his name to the Appian road and the Appian aquaeduct, which were completed by him. (Fasti Capit. ; Liv. ix. 29, 33 ; Frontin. de Aquaed. 5.) [Claudius, No. 10.] Frontinus states {I. c.) that Plautius obtained the surname of Venox from his discovering the springs which fed the aquaeduct (" ob inquisitatas aquae venas Venocis cognomen "), and in the Fasti Capi- tolini it is said that he was called Venox during his censorship ; but this explanation of the name, though repeated by Niebuhr {Hist, of Rome, voL iii. p. 308), looks suspicious ; and it is most likely that Venox is merely another form of Venno, which was borne before the time of the censor by other members of the gens. [Venno.] The tale of Plau- tius bringing back the tibicines to Rome in his cen- sorship, which is commemorated on a coin of Plautius Plancus, is related elsewhere. [Vol. III. p. 384, b.] VENTI {&v€fxoL), the winds. They appear personified even in the Homeric poems, but at the same time they are conceived as ordinary phe- nomena of nature. The master and ruler of all the winds is Aeolus, who resides in the island Aeolia (Virg. Aen. i. 52, &c. ; comp. Aeolus) ; but the other gods also, especially Zeus, exercise a power over them. (Horn. II. xii. 281.) Homer mentions by name Boreas (north wind), Eurus (east wind), Notus (south wind), and Zephyrus (west wind). When the funeral pile of Patro- chus could not be made to burn, Achilles promised to offer sacrifices to the winds, and Iris accord- ingly hastening to them, found them feasting in the palace of Zephyrus in Thrace. Boreas and Zephyrus, at the invitation of Iris, forthwith hastened across the Thracian sea into Asia, to cause the fire to blaze. (Hom. //. xxiii. 185, &c. ; comp. ii. 145, &c., v. 534, ix. 5, Od. v. 295.) Boreas and Zephyrus are usually mentioned to- gether by Homer, just as Eurus and Notus. (.Comp, Boreas and Zephyrus.) According to Hesiod {Theog. 378, &c., 869, &c.), the beneficial winds, Notus, Boreas, Argestes, and Zephynis, were the sons of Astraeus and Eos, and the de- structive ones, as Typhon, are said to be the sons of Typhoeus. Later, especially philosophical writers, endeavoured to define the winds more accurately, according to their places in the com- pass. Thus Aristotle {Meteor, ii. 6), besides the four principal winds (Boreas or Aparctias, Eur s, Notus, and Zephyrus) mentions three, the Meses, Caicias, and Apeliotes, between Boreas and Eurus ; between Eurus and Notus he places the Phoe- nicias ; between Notus and Zephyrus he has only the Lips, and between Zephyrus and Boreas he places the Argestes (Olympias or Sciron) and the Thrascias. It must further be observed that ac- cording to Aristotle, the Eurus is not due east, but south-east. In the Museum Pio-Clementinum there exists a marble monument upon which the winds are described with their Greek and Latin names, viz. Septentrio (Aparctias), Eurus (Euros, or south- east), and between these two Aquilo (Boreas), Vultumus (Caicias) and Solanus (Apheliotes). Be- tween Eurus and Notus (Notos) there is only one, the Euroauster (Euronotus) ; between Notus and Favonius (Zephyrus) are marked Austro-Africus (Libonotus), and Africus (Lips) ; and between Favonius and Septentrio we find Chrus (lapyx) and Circius (Thracius). See the tables of the winds figured in Gottling's edit, of Hesiod, p. 39. The winds were represented by poets and artists 4 K 3