Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1288

 12Ct VEIL to such an extent that they threatened to inundate the surrounding country. The oracle of Delphi was consulted on the occasion, and the response involved not only the immediate subject of the application, but also the remoter one of the capture of Veii. AccordincT to the voice from the sacred tripod, that city would be taken when the waters of the lake were made to flow off without running directly into the sea; and the prophecy was confirmed by the revelation of a Veientine haruspex maile during the interval of the embassy to Delpiii. All that we can infer from this narrative is that the formation of the emissary for draining the Alban lake was con- temporary with the siege of Veii [cf. Albamus La- cus, Vol. I. p. 29] : the rest must be referred to the propensity of the ancients to ascribe every great event to the intervention of the gods; for we have already seen that Fidenae was captured by means of a cuniculus, a fact which there does not appear to be any VAlid reason to doubt, and therefore the eniis- .sary of the lake cannot be regarded as having first suggested to the Romans the method of taking a city by mine. The honour of executing this project was re- served for the dictator M. Furius Camillus. For- tune seemed to have entirely deserted the Veien- tines;, for though the pleading of the Capenates and Falisci on their liehalf had made some impres- sion on the national assembly of the Etruscans, their attention was diverted in another direction by a sudden irruption of the Cisalpine Gauls. Mean- while Camillus, having defeated some bodies of troops who endeavoured to relieve Veii, erected a line of forts around it, to cut off all communication with the surrounding country, and appointed some corps of miners to work continually at the cunicu- lus. When the mine was completed, he ordered a picked body of his most valiant soldiers to penetrate through it, whilst he himself diverted the attention of the inhabitants by feigned attacks in dilTerent quarters. So skilfully had the mine been directed that the troops who entered it emerged in the temple of Juno itself, in the highest part of the citadel. The soldiers who guarded the walls were thus taken in the rear; the gates were thrown open, and the city soon filled with Romans. A dreadful massacre en- sued; the town was sacked, and those citizens who had escaped the sword were sold into slavery. The image of Juno, the tutelary deity of Veii, was car- ried to Rome and pompously installed on Mount Aventine, where a magnificent temple was erected to her, which lasted till the abolition of paganism. (Liv. V. 8, 12, 13, 15—22; Cic. Liv. i. 44, ii. 32; Pint. Cam. 5, sq.; Flor. i. 12.) Veii was captured in the year 396 b. c. Its territory was divided among the citizens of Rome at the rate of seven jugera per head. A great de- bate arose between the senate and the people whether A''eii should be repopulated by Roman citizens, and thus made as it were a second capital; but at the persuasion of Camillus the project was abandoned. But though the city was deserted, its buildings were nut destroyed, as is shown by several facts. Thus, after the battle of the Allia and the taking of Rome by the Gauls, the greater part of the Romans retired to Veii and fortified themselves there; and when the Gauls were expelled, the question was mooted whether Rome, which had been reduced to ashes, should be abandoned, and Veii converted into a new capital. But the eloquence of Camillus again de- cided the Romans for the negative, and the question VEII. was set at rest for ever. This took place in b. c. 389. Some refractoiy citizens, however, who dis- liked the trouble of rebuilding their own houses at Rome, took refuge in the empty ones of Veii, and set at nought a senatusconsultum ordering them to return; but they were at length compelled to come back by a decree of capital punishment against those who remained at Veii beyond a day prescribed. (Liv. v. 49, sqq., vi. 4.) From this time Veii was completely deserted and went gradually to decay. Cicero (nfZ Fam. xvi. 9) speaks of the measuring of the Veientine territory fur distribution; and it was probably divided by Caesar among his soldiers in b. c. 45. (Plut. Caes. 57.) Propertius also describes its walls as existing in his time; but the space within consisted of fields where the shepherd fed his flock, and which were then under the operation of the decempeda (iv. 10. 29). It is, however, rather difficult to reconcile this chronology, unless there were two distributions. Caesar also appears to have planted a colony at the ancient citj', and thus arose the second, or Roman, Veii, which seems to have been considerable enough to sustain an assault during the wars of the triuuQvirs. The inhabitants were again dispersed, and the colony was not re-erected till towards the end of the reign of Augustus, when it assumed the name of mnni- cipium Augustum Veiens, as appears from inscrip- tions. (Cf. Auct. de Coloniis.) When Florus, who flourished in the reign of Hadrian, asserts (i. 12) that scarcely a vestige remained to mark the spot where Veii once stood, he either writes with great careless- ness or is alluding to the ancient and Etruscan Veii. The existence of the municipium in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius is attested by several monu- ments discovered in its ruins; and some inscriptions also found there show that it was in existence at least as late as the reign of Constantius Chlorus. The monuments alluded to consist partly of sculptures relating to those emperors and their families, and p:trtly of inscriptions. Amongst the latter the most important is now preserved in the Capitoline JIuseum at Rome, recording the admission of Caius Julius Gelotes, a freedman of Augustus, to the office of an Augustalis, by the centumviri of Veii. It is dated in the consulship of Gaetulicus and Calvisius Sabinus, a. u. c. 779=b. c. 26, or the 13th year of the reign of Tiberius. It is publishetl by Fabretti (Inscr. p. 170), but more correctly from the original by Nibby in his Dintorni di Roma (vol. iii. p. 409). The accents are worthy of note. Among the centumvirs whose names are subscribed to this decree are those of two of the Tarquitian family, namely, M. Tarquitius Saturninus and T. Tar- quitius Rufus. This family, which produced a cele- brated writer on Etruscan divination (Maerob. Sat. iii. 7), seems to have belonged to Veii and to have enjoyed considerable importance there, as two other inscriptions relating to it have been discovered. One of these records the restoration of a statue erected in honour of M. Tarquitius Saturninus by the 22nd Legion; the other is a tablet of Tarquitia Prisca dedicated to her husband M. Saenius Mar- cellus. (Nibby, Ih. p. 410, sq.) The family of Priscus is the most celebrated of the Gens Tar- quitia. One of these was the accuser of Statilius Taurus in the reign of Claudius, and was himself condemned under the law of repetundae in the reign of Nero. (Tac. Ann. xii. 59, xiv. 44.) There are various coins of the Tarquitii. (Eckhel, 1). N. V. p. 322.) After the ei-a of ConsUmtine