Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1281

 VALVA. directions to competent persons to make an accurate and complete survey of the whole line of the barrier, from sea to sea. Whether any results of this inves- tigation have yet been published, we are not aware. Of the identified stations the most extensive and important are Vindobala, Cilurnum, Procolitia, and Borcovicus. At the first, great numbers of coins and other antiquities have been found. The second has an area of 8 acres, and is crowded with ruins of stone buildings. A great part of the rampart of Procolitia is entire, and its northern face, which is formed of the main line of wall, is in excellent preservation. Borcovicus, however, surpasses all the other stations in magnitude and in the interest which attaches to its remains. It is l.'i acres in extent, besides a large suburb on the S. Within it no less than 20 streets may be traced ; and it seems to have contained a Doric temple, part of a Doric capital and fragments of the shafts of columns having been discovered in it, besides a great number of altars, inscriptions, and other antiquities. The remaining portions of this great fortification may be briefly described. The Castella, or mile-castles as they are called, <in account of being usually a Roman mile from one another, are buildings about €0 or 70 feet square. With two exceptions, they are placed against the S. face of the wall ; tiie exceptions, at Portgate and near Aesica, seem to have projected equally N. and S. of the wall. The castella have usually only one entrance, of very substantial masonry, in the centre of the S. wall ; but the most perfect specimen of them now existing has a N. as well as a S. gate. Between each two castella there were four smaller buildings, called turrets or watch-towers, which were little more than stone sentry-boxes, about 3 feet thick, and from 8 to 10 feet square in the inside. The line of the wall was completed by military roads, keeping up the communications with all its parts and with the southern districts of the island. As these were similar in their construction to other Ro- man roads, it is not necessary to say more respecting tliem in this place. The following works contain detailed information of every kind connected with the Roman Wall : — Horsley's Britannia Romana ; Warburton's Vallum Romunum, 4to. Lond. 1753; W. Hutton's History of the Roman Wall, 1801; 'Roy's Military Antiqui- ties of the Romans in Britain ; the 3rd vol. of Hodg- son's //i«to?'!/ o/"-'Vo?'i/m?rt6eWa«cZ; and lastly, TkeRo- man Wall; an Historical and Topographical De- scription of the Barrier of the loiuer Isthnvus, tfc. Deduced from numerous personal Surveys. By the Rev. J. C. Bruce, jM. A., 2nd edit. Lond. 1853, 4to. This work contains full descriptions of all the anti- quities hitherto discovered along the line of the wall, and great numbers of well executed engravings of the most interesting objects, besides maps and plans of the works. [J. R.] VALVA {OvaKova., Ptol. iv. 2. § 16), a moun- tain in Mauretania Caesariensis. [T. H. D.] VAMA {Ovajjia, Ptol. ii. 4. § 15), a town of the Celtici in Hispania Baetica. [T. H. D.] VANCIANIS. [Batiana.] VANDABANDA {ObavlaSiv^a, Ptol. vi. 12. § 4), a district of Sogdiana, between the Mons Caucjisus (^Hindii-Kush') and the Imaus (^Himdleh). It is probably nearly the same as the present Ba- dakhshdn (Wilson, Ariana, p. 164). [V.] VANDALI, VANDALII, VINDILI, or VAN- DULI (OvauSaXol, Bap5rjoi, BavSiKoi), a powerful VANDUARA. 1257 branch of the German nation, which, according to Procopius (Bell. Goth. i. 3), originally occupied the country about the Palus Maeotis, but afterwards inhabited an extensive tract of country on the south coast of the Baltic, between the rivers Vistula and Viadrus, where Pliny (iv. 28) mentions the Burgundiones as a tribe of the Vindili. At a some- what later period we find them in the country north of Boheinia, about the Riesengehirge. which derived from them the name of Vandalici Montes (Ouaf- SaAiKo opt) ; Dion Cass. Iv. 1.) In the great Jlar- comannian war, they were allied with the Jlarco- manni, their southern neighbours, and in conjunction with them and the Quadi attacked Pannonia. (Jul. Ca])itol. M. Aurel. 17;. Eutrop. viii. 13; Vopise. Prob. 18 ; Dexippus, Exc. de Leg. p. 12.) In the reign of Constantine they again appear in a different country, having established themselves in Jloravia, whence the emperor transplanted them into Pan- nonia (Jornand. Get. 22), and in the reign of Probus they also appear in Dacia. (Vopisc. Prob. 38.) In a. d. 406, when most of the Roman troops had been withdrawn from Gaul, the Vandals, in conjunction with other German tribes, crossed the Rhine and ravaged Gaul in all directions ; and their devastations in that country and afterwards in Spain have made their name synonymous with that of savage destroyers of what is beautiful and venerable. Three years later they established themselves in Spain under their chief Godigisclus. Here again they plundered and ravaged, among many other places, Nova Carthago and Hispalis, together with the Balearian islands. At last, in A. D. 429, the whole nation, under king Genseric, crossed over into Africa, whither they had been invited by Bonifacius, who hoped to avail himself of their assistance against his calumniators. But when they were once in Africa, they refused to quit it. They not only defeated Bonifacius, but made themselves masters of the whole province of Africa. This in» volved them in war with the Empire, during which Sicily and the coasts of Italy w-ere at times fearfully ravaged. On one occasion, a. d. 455, Genseric and his hordes took j)ossession of Rome, which they plundered and sacked for fourteen days. And not only Rome, but other cities also, such as Capua and Nola, were visited in a similar way by these bar- barians. Afterwards various attempts were made to subdue or expel them, but without success, and the kingdom of the Vandals maintained itself in Africa for a period of 105 years, that is, down to a. d. 534, when Belisarius, the general of the Eastern Empire, succeeded in destroying their power, and recovered Africa for the Empire. As to the nationality of the Vandals, most German writers claim them for their nation (Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 57 ; Wilhelm, Germanien, y. 87) ; but Dr. Latham (ou Tac. Epikg. p. Ixxxviii. foil.) and others pre'er regarding them as a Slavonic people, though their arguments are chiefly of an etymological nature, which is not always a safe guide in historical inquiries. (Papencordt, Gesch. der Vandal. Herrschaft in Africa, Berlin, 1837; Hansen, Wer veranlasstc die Berufung der Vandahii nach Africa? Dorpat, 1843; Friedliinder, Die 31unzen der Vandalcn, Leipzig, 1849.) [L. S.] VANDALICI MONTES. [Vanuaij.] VANDUARA, or VANDOGAIiA (Oi/av5oi'/apa, Ptol. ii. 3. § 9), a town of the Danuionii in Bri- tannia Barbara. Now Paisley. (Cf. Camden, p. 1214.) [T.H.D.]