A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

1272 VISCELLINUS. VITELLII.
never carried into execution. It must be recollected over to the plebeians, because the patricians had
that the comitia of the tribes had no share in the shed the blood of their father or ancestor. (Niebuhr,
legislature till the time of the Publilian law, and Hist. of Rome, vol. ii. p. 166, &c., Lectures on the
that the tribunes before the latter time had no History of Rome, p. 189, foell., ed. Schmitz, 1848.)
power to bring forward a law of any kind: con- VISEIUS. [SEIus, No. 3.]
sequently, when we read of their agrarian law, as VISE'LLIUS VARRO. [VARao.]
we do almost every year down to the time of the VISI'DIUS. [NASraIUS.]
decemvirs, it must refer to a law which had been VI'SOLUS, an agnomen borne by most of the
already enacted, but never carried into execution. Poetelii Libones. [L30, POETELICTS.]
In the following year, B. C. 485, Cassius was VITALIA'NUS, praetorian praefect under
brought to trial on the charge of aiming at regal Maximinus, his devoted adherent and the willingr
power, and was put to death. The manner of his trial instrument of his cruelty, was assassinated at Rome
and the nature of his death are differently stated A. D. 238 by the emissaries of the Gordians before
in the ancient writers; but there can be little the events in Africa had been made known pubdoubt that he was accused before the assembly of licly. The details will be found in Herodian
the curies by the quaestores parricidii, K. Fabius (vii. 14) and in Capitolinus (Gordian. tres, 10).
and L. Valerius, and was sentenced to death by See also Capitol. Maxim. duo, 14, where Valeriano
his fellow patricians, who regarded him as a traitor is a false reading for Vitaliano. [W. R.]
to their order. Like other state criminals, he was VITA'LIS, artists. 1. PAPIRIUS, a painter,
scourged and beheaded. His house was razed to known by an inscription to the memory of his
the ground, and the spot where it stood in front of wife, which is now in the corridor of inscriptions
the temple of Tellus was left waste. A brazen in the Vatican, and on which the artist has destatue of Ceres was erected in her temple, with an scribed his profession by appending to his. name
inscription recording that it was dedicated out of the words Arte Pictoria. (Spon, MlJiscell. p. 229;
the fortune of Cassius (ex Cassianafamilia datum). Fabretti, Inser. p. 235, No. 622; Welcker,
Dionvsius stated that Cassius was hurled from the Kunstblatt, 1827, No. 84; R. Rochette, LeMtce a
Tarpeian rock, which mistake arose from his strange ill. LShorn, p. 425, 2d ed.)
supposition, which was also shared by Livy, that 2. An architect, known by the inscription which
Cassius was condemned by the assembly of the once belonged to his family tonmb, and which runs
tribes. Other accounts related that Cassius was thus: —TI. CLAUDIUS. SCARAI'HI. VITALIS. ARcondemned by his own father, which statement CHITECTUS. V. A. XL. FECIT. SIBI. ET. SUIS.
probably arose, as Niebuhr has suggested, from a (Gruter, p. DcxxIII.; Montfaucon, Antiq. Explic.
desire to soften down the glaring injustice of the vol. v. pl. 87, p. 95; Sillig, Catalog. Artific. Apdeed; while other writers aoain, who thought it pend. s. v.; R. Rochette, 1. c.) [P. S.]
impossible that a man who had been thrice consul VITELLIA'NUS, a Roman architect, known
and had twice triumphed, should still be in his by the inscription on his tomb in the Via Flaicnifather's power, restricted the father's judgment to nia, on which he is described as SEX. VERIANUS.
his declaring that he considered his son guilty. sEX. F. QUIR. VITELLIANUS. (Gori, Inssr. Don.
(Liv. i. 43; Dionys. viii. 68-80; Cic. de Rep. ii. p. 317, n. 6; Sillig, Catalog. Artific. Appeld.
27, 35, Philipp. ii. 44, Lael. 8, 11,pro Domn. 38; s. v.; R. Rochette, Lettre a M. Sc/sorn, p. 42.,
Val. Max. vi. 3. ~ 1; Plin. II. N. xxxiv. 6. s. 14.) 2d ed.) [P. S.]
Whether Cassius was really guilty or not, cannot VITE'LLII. In the time of Suetonius it was disbe determined with certainty. All the ancient puted whether the origin of the Vitellii was amncient
writers, with one exception, speak of his guilt as and noble, or recent and obscure, and even mean.
an universally admitted fact; and the statement The adulators of the emperor Vitellius and his eneof Dion Cassius (Exc. de Sentent. 19, p. 150, ed. mies were the partizans of the two several opinions.
Mai) that he was innocent, and was condemned The namne of the Vitellii at least was anlcienlt, and
to death out of malice, must be regarded as simply they were said to derive their descent from Faunms,
the expression of Dion's own opinion, and not as a king of the Aborigines, and Vitellia, as the naiLle
statement for which the writei had met with ally is in the text of Suetonius. ( Vitell. c. 1.) Thl'lle
evidence. So strong in antiquity uas the belief in family, according to tradition, went from the corutry
his guilt, that the censors of B. c. 159 melted down of the Sabini to Rome, and was received amllong
his statue, which was erected on the spot in front the Patricians. As evidence of the existence of this
of his house, and which must have been set up family (stirps), a Via Vitellia, extending fronm the
there by one of his descendants, for it is impossible Janiculum to thle sea, is mentioned, and a Romanm
to believe that the quaestors would have spared it, colonia of the same name, Vitellia, in the colrctry
if it had been erected, as Pliny states (I. c.), by of the Aequi. (Liv. v. 29, ii. 39.) The name of
Cassius himself. On the other hand, such a general the Vitellii occurs among the Romans who conspired
belief is no proof of his guilt; and it is far more to restore the last Tarquinlius, and the sister of the
probable that the patricians invented the accusation Vitellii was the wife of the consul Brutus. (Liv. ii.
for the purpose of getting rid'of a dangerous oppo- 4.)
nent; and as they were both the accusers and the Cassius Severus and others assigned the meanest
judges, the condemnation of Cassius followed as a origin to the Vitellii: the founder of the stock, acmatter of course. Dionysius relates (viii. 80) that cording to them, was a freedman. Suetonius leaves
Cassius left behind him three solls, whose lives the question undecided.
were spared by the senate, although many were 1. P. V1TELLIUS, whatever his origin may have
anxious that the whole race should be extermi- been, was a Roman eques, and a proclurator of
nated. The Cassii mentioned at a later time were Augustus. His nIative place wcas Nuceria, but SIueall plebeians. The sons may have been expelled tonius does not say which of the places so called.
by the patricians from their order, or they or their He had four sons, Alllus, Quintus, Publius, and
descendants may themselves have voluntarily passed Lucius. (Sueton. FIitell. 2.)