Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1283

 VAEIANA. gan to be navigable (Plin. ii. 3. s. 4), and where also the main road through Spain crossed the river, between Calagurra and Tritium. (^Itin. Ant. p. 393, where, under the name of Verela, the same town is undoubtedly meant.) Usually identified with Vare.a (of. Florez, Cantabr. p. 198), though some have sought it at Logrdno, and others at Mu- rillo de Rio Leza. [T. H. D.] VARIA'NA (Bapidva), a to^vn in Lower Moesia on the Danube, was the garrison of a portion of the tifth legion and of a squadron of horse. (/<. A}it. p. 220; Procop. de Aed.iv. 6; N^ofit. Imp., where it is called Vaiiniana and Varina.) Its site is marked by the town of Orcaja or Orcava. [L. S.] VAKIANAE, a place in Pannonia, on the road running along the left bank of the Sanis from Siscia to Sirmium. (/t. Ant. pp. 260, 26.5.) Its exact site is only matter of conjectuie. [L. S.] VARl'NI, a German tribe mentioned by Pliny (iv. 28) as a branch of the Vindili or Vandali, while Tacitus (Gerni. 40) speaks of them as be- longing to the Suevi. But they must have occupied a district in the north of Germany, not far from the coast of the Baltic, and are probably the same as the Pharodini (^apoSeivoi) of Ptolemy (ii. 11. § 13), in the country between the Chalusus and Suebus ; it is highly probable, also, that the Varni (OJapfoi) of Procopius {B. Goth. ii. 15, iii. 35, iv. 20, &c.) ai'e the same people as the Varini. The Viruni (OvipowoC) of Ptolemy (ii. 11. § 17), who dwelt north of the Albis, seem to have been a branch of the Varini. (Comp. Cassiod. Fa7: iii. 3, where they are called Guarni ; W'ersebe, Beschreib. der Gau zwischen Elbe, Saale, <^c p. 70.) [L. S.] VARISTI. [Narisci.] VARUS QOvapos), a river which the ancient geographers make the boundary of Gallia and Italia, as it is now the boundary of France and Italy. (Mela, ii. 4; Ptol. ii. 10. § 1.) It is only the lower part of the Var which forms the boundary between Italy and France. The river gives its name to the French department of Var, the eastern limit of which is the lower course of the river Var. The larger part of the Var is in the Sardinian territory. It is only the mouth of the y^ar which Ptolemy names when he fixes the limit between Italy and Gallia Narbonensis. D'Anville remarks on the line of Lu- can (i. 404) — " Finis et Hesperiae promoto limite Varus " — that he alludes to the extension of the boundary of Italy westward from the summit of the Alpis Jlari- tima, which is Italy's natural boundary. He adds that the dependencies of the province of the Aipes Jlaritimae comprehended Cemenelium (^Cimiez^ and its district, which are on the Italian side of the Var andeastof Nicaeai[A7«2re). [Cemenelium]. But D'Anville may have mistaken Lucan's meaning, who seems to allude to the extension of the boundary of Italy from the Eubicon to the Varus, as Vibius Se- quester says : '" Varus nunc Galliam dividit, ante Rubicon " (ed. Oberl.). However, the critics are not agreed about this passage. (D'Anville, Notice, (f c. ; Ukert, Gallien, p. 81.) [G. L.] VASADA (OuacraSa), a town of Lycaonia, a little to the south-west of Laodiceia (Ptol. v. 4. § 10; Hierocl. p. 675; Coru:. Chalccd. p. 674, where it is miswritten OijaaZa; Cone. Const, iii. p. 675, where it bears the name of 'Aao-aSa). Its site is probably marked by the ruins near Channiir CliMUih, between Ilgun arid Ladik. (Hamilton, VASIO. 1259 Researches, ii. p. 190, in the Joum. of the Roy- Geogr. Sac. viii. p. 144 ; Kiepert, in Franz, Fiinj Inschriffen, p. 36.) [L. S.] VASALAETUS (OvaaaXanov or OvaadXiTov opos, Ptol. iv. 3. §§ 18, 26), a mountain at the S. boundary of the Rej;io Syrtica. [T.H. D.] VASATAE. [Cossio or Cossium.] VASATES. It is probable that the name Va- sarii in Ptolemy ( ii. 7. § 15) should be Vasatii, as D'Anville says, and so it is printed in some Greek texts. But Ptolemy makes them border on the Ga- bali and places them farther north than Bordeaux, though he names their chief town Cossium. The Vo- cates are enumerated by Caesar (£. G. iii. 23, 27) among the Aquitanian peoples who submitted to P. Crassus in b. c. 56. [Cossio or Cossium.] [G.L.] VA'SCONES {OvauKaves, Strab. iii. pp. 155, 116; OliaaKovis, Ptol. ii. 8. §§ 10, 67), a people in the NE. part of Hispania Tarraconensis, between the Iberus and the Pyrenees, and stretching as far as the N. coast, in the present Navarre and Gtiipuscoa. Their name is preserved in the modem one of the Basques; although that people do not call themselves by that appellation, but Euscaldunac, their country Euscaleria, and their language Euscara. (Ford's Handbook of Spain, ^. 557; cf. W. v. Humboldt, Untersuch. &c. p. 54.) They went into battle bare- headed. (Sil. Ital. iii. 358.) They passed among the Romans for skilful soothsayers. (Lamp. Alex. Sev. 27.) Their principal town was Pompelo {Pamplona). (Cf. Malte-brun, Moeurs et Usages des anciens Habitans d'Espagne, p. .309.) [T.H. D.] VA'SCONUM SALTUS, the W. oflshoot of the Pyrenees, running along the Mare Cantabricum, and named after the Vascones, in whose territory it was. (Plin. iv. 20. s. 34; Auson. Ep. 15.) It may be more precisely defined as that portion of the chain now called Sierra de Orcanio, S. de Augana, and S. Sejos, forming the E. part of the Cantabrian chain. [T. H. D.] VASIO {Ouaauiv : Eth. Vasiensis), a town of the Vocontii in Gallia Narbonensis, and the only town which Ptolemy (ii. 10. § 17) assigns to them. Vasio is mentioned by Jlela (ii. 5) as one of the richest towns of the Narbonensis ; and Pliny (iii. 4) names Vasio and Lucus Au£usti as the two chief towns of the Vocontii. The ethnic name Vasiensis appears in the Noiitia of the Gallic Pro- vinces (Civitas Vasiensium), and in inscriptions. The place is Vaiso7i in the department of Vancluse, on the Ouvcze, a branch of the Rhone. It is now a small, decayed place ; but there are remains which show that it may have been what Mela describes it to have been. The ancient remains are spread over a consideralile surface. There is a Roman bridge of a single arch over the Ouvize, which still forms the only communication between the town and the faubours;. The bridge is built on two rocks at that part of the river where the mountains whicii shut in the bed of the river approach nearest. There are also the remains of a theatre ; the semicircle of the cavea is clearly traced, and the line of the proscenium is indicated by some stones which rise above the earth. There are also the remains of a quay on the banks of the river which was destroyed by an inun- dation in 1616. The quay was pierced at consider- able intervals by sewers which carried to the river the water and filth of the town : these sewers are large enough for a man to stand in upright. There are also traces of the aqueducts which brought to the town the waters of the great spring of Groseuu.