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VELIUS CEREALIS, a friend of the younger Pliny, two of whose letters are addressed to him. (Ep. iv.21, ii. 19.)
VELIUS LONGUS. [LoNcus.] VELLEIUS. 1. jC. 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-sus. (Cic. de Orat. iii. 21, de Nat. Deor. i. 21.)
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).
VENILIA, a Roman divinity connected with the winds (yenti) 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 Turnus, Jutuma, and Canens. (Varro, de Ling. Lut. v. 72 ; Virg. Aen. x. 75 ; Ov. Met. xiv. 334.) [L. S.]
VENNONIUS 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 Fragmenta veterum Historicorum Romanorum^ 8vo. Berolin. 1833; Orelli, Onomasticon Tullianum s. v. Ven nonius.) [W. R.]
VENNONIUS. 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, a 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).
VENOX, C. PLAUTIUS, censor b. c. 312 with Ap. Claudius Caec.us, resigned his office at the end of eighteen months in accordance with the Aemilian law, whiph had limited the duration of the censorship to that time ; while his colleague, Appius, continued to hold the censorship, in vio-
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 Plautius bringing back the tibicines to Rome in his censorship, which is commemorated on a coin of Plautius Plancus, is related elsewhere. [Vol. III. p. 384, b.] VENTI (Hve/j.01^ the winds. They appear personified even in the Homeric poems, but at the same time they are conceived as ordinary phenomena 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. //. 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 accordingly 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. (Horn. II. xxiii. 185, &c. ; comp. ii. 145, &c., v. 534, ix. 5, Od. v. 295.) Boreas and Zephyrus are usually mentioned together 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 Zephyrus, were the sons of Astraeus and Eos, and the destructive 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 compass. 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 according 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 southeast), and between these two Aquilo (Boreas), Vulturnus (Caicias) and Solanus (Apheliotes). Between 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
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