Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/1290

 1266 VELATODTJKUM. liuman ashes, and also several small vases of the most archaic Etruscan pottery. Within was another smaller chamber also containing cinerary urns. A complete description of this remarkable sepulchre will be found in Mr. Dennis's Etruria (vol. i. ch. 2). For the history and antiquities of Veii the follow- ing works may be consulted; Nibby, Dlntomi di Roma, vol. iii., and Viac/ffio Antiquarlo, vol. i.; Canina, L'antica Citta di Veji descritta; Abeken, 3HttelitaUen; Miiller, Etrusker : Sir W. Gell, Topography of Rome and its Vicinity; Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria. [T. H. D.] VELATODURUJI, in Gallia, is placed by the Antonine Itin. on the road from Vesontio {Besampn) to Epamanduodurum {Mandeure) xxii. from Be- sanqon and xii. from Mandeure. But these two numbers exceed the distance between Besanqon and Mandeure. The termination durum seems to show that Velatodurum was on a stream; and DAnville conjectures that it is near Clereval on the Doubs, where there is a place named Pont-pierre. But this is merely a guess. ' [Ep^ulvnduodu- EUM."! [G. L.] VELAUNI, a people mentioned in the Trophy of the Alps (Plin. iii. 20), between the Nerusii and Suetri. If the geographical position of these people corresponds to their position in Pliny's list of tribes, we know in a general way where to place them. [NeRUSII; SUETKI.] [G. L.] VELDIDENA, one of the most important towns of Rhaetia, on the southern bank of the river Oenus, and on the road leading from Tridentum to Augusta Vindelicorum. {It. Ant. pp. 258, 2.59, 275, 280.) According to coins which have been found on its site, it was made a Roman colony with the surname Augusta. Its site is now occupied by the convent of Wilden in the neighbourhood of Inspruck, on the little river Sihl. (See Roschmann, Veldidena Urhs antiquissima Augusti Colonia, Ulm, 1744, 4to.) [L. S.] VELEIA {EtJi. Veleias, atis : Ru. near Monte- polo), a town of Liguria, situated on the frontiers of Gallia Cisalpina. about 20 miles S. of Placentia {Piacenza), in the hills which form the lower slopes of the Apennines. The Veleiates are mentioned by Pliny among the Ligurian tribes; and in another pas- sage he speaks of " oppidum Veleiatium," which was remarkable for the longevity of some of its inhabitants (vii. 49. s. 50). He there describes it as situated " circa Placentiam in collibus," but its precise site was unknown until its remains were discovered in 1760. From the mode in which these are buried, it seems certain that the town was overwhelmed by a vast landslip from the neighbouring mountain. Systematic excavations on the spot, which have been carried on since 1760, have brought to light several buildings of the ancient city, including the amphi- theatre, a basilica, the forum, and several temples: and the great number of bronze ornaments and im- plements of a domestic kind, as well as statues, busts, &c., which have been discovered on the spot, have given celebrity to Veleia as the Pompeii of Northern Italy. Unfortunately the great weigiit of the superincumbent mass has crushed in the build- ings, so that all the upper part of them is destroyed, and the larger statues have suffered severely from the same cause. The inscriptions found there attest that Veleia was a flourishing municipal town in the first centuries of the Roman Empire. One of these is of peculiar interest as containing a detailed account of the investment of a large sum of money by the em- VELIA. peror Trajan in the purchase of lands for the main tenance of a number of poor children of both sexes. This remarkable document contains the names of numerous farms and villages in the neighbourhood of Veleia, and shows that that town was the capital of an extensive territory (probably the same once held by the Ligurian tribe of the Veleiates) which was divided into a number of Pagi, or rural districts. The names both of these and of the various " fundi" or farms noticed are almost uniformly of Roman origin, — thus affording a remarkable proof how completely this district had been Romanised before the period in question. The Tabula Alimentaria Trajana, as it is commonly called, has been re- peatedly published, and illustrated with a profusion of learning, especially by De Lama. (Tavola Alimen- taria Veleiate detta Trajana, 4to. Parma, 1819.) A description of the ruins and antiquities has been published by Antolini (Le Rovine di Vekja, Milano, 1819). The coins found at Veleia are very numerous, but none of them later than the time of Probus : whence it is reasonably inferred that the catastrophe which buried the city occurred in the reign of that emperor. [E. H. B.] VELIA (Oue'Aia, or OutAeia, Ptol. ii. 6. § 65), a town of the Caristi in Hispania Tarraconensis, on the road from Pompelo to Asturica {Itin. Ant. p. 454. where it is called Beleia). (Cf. Plin. iii. 3. s. 4; Geogr. Rav. iv. 45.) Variously identified with V'iana, Bernedo, and Yruna. [T. H. D.] VELIA ('Tf'Arj or 'EAe'a : Etli. 'TeArJTrjs or 'EAedrrjs, Veliensis; CasteW a Mare della Biiicca), one of the principal of the Greek colonies in South- ern Italy, situated on the shores of the Tyrrhenian sea, about midway between Posidonia and Pyxus. There is some uncertainty respecting the correct form of the name. Strabo tells us that it was ori- ginally called Hyele('TeAr)), but was in his day called Elea ( 'EAe'a), and Diogenes Laertius a'.so says that it was at first called Hyele and afterwards Elea. (Strab. vi. p. 252; Diog. Laert. ix. 5. § 28; Steph. B. s. V.) But it is certain from the evidence of its coins, which uniformly bear the legends 'TEAH and 'TEAHXriN, that the name of Hyele continued in use among the people themselves as long as the city continued; while,on the other hand, the name of 'EAea is already found in Scylax (p. 4. § 12), and seems to have been certainly that in use among Attic writers from an early period, where the Eleatic scliool of philosophy rendered the name familiar. Strabo also tells us that some authors wrote the name Ele ("EAtj), from a fountain of that name; and this form, compared with 'Te'A?j and the Latin form Velia, seems to show clearly that the diversity of names arose from the Aeolic Digamma, which was probably originally prefixed to the name, and was re- tained in the native usage and in that of the Romans, while it was altogether dropped by the Attics. (Miin- ter, Velia, p. 21.) It is not improbable that the name was derived from that of the neighbouring river, the Hales of Cicero {Alento'), of which the name is written 'EAeTjs by Strabo and BeAe'a by Stephanus of Byzantium. (Cic. ad Fam. vii. 20; Strab. vi. p. 254.) Others, however, derived it from the marshes (eAr)) at the mouth of the same river. There is no trace of the existence of any town on the site of Velia before the establishment of the Greek colony there, and it is probable that this, like most of the Greek colonies in Southern Italy, was founded on a wholly new site. It was a colony from Phocaca in Ionia, and derived its origin from the voluntary ex-