CATARACTS, AND INUNDATIONS. 73 



Varia, (to which as to the county t-wn, he mentions, Epist. 14, 

 B. I. that his village used to send hve heads of famines to transact 

 provincial business) preserves apparently its haine even unto this 

 day, Vicovaro in Italian signifying the town of Varus, to whom it 

 is probable it belonged, and the more so as Varus had a country seat 

 so near as Tivo'L 



Bardella, as appears by an inscription dug up about the year 

 1760, stands on the scire of the anttent Mandela *. Til is circuni- 

 cumstance, together witii the resemblance in sound between the 

 names Digentia and Licenza, as pronounced by I lie natives, seems 

 to prove that this is the river of which Horace speaks. B. 2. Sat. 6. 

 *' As often as the cool stream of Digentia refreshes nit which Man- 

 dela drinks, a town wrinkled with cold/' etc. Again, Horace ends 

 liis epistle to Fnscus, B. 1. E. 10, saying, " I write this to you from 

 behind the mouldering fane of Vacuna." 



Now Varro asserts that the goddess Vacuna, worshipped by the 

 Sabines, meant Victory : and it appears by an inscription found 

 about thirty years ago, in digging about the ruins, common! s sup- 

 posed by geographers to have been those of the temple of Vacuna, 

 that the temple of Victory on that spot was rebuilt by the I jr. 

 Vespasian, about a hundred years after the time of Horace, 

 speaks of it as in ruins |. 



Add to this that it is within an easy walk of the apot upon the 

 borders of the Licenza, so marked out as the farm of Horace. 



* The inscription (which is on marble, and was found in the angle, formed 

 by the confluence of the Licenza and Taverone) runs literally thus Val. Maxima 

 Mater Domni predia Valeria dulcissima Filia quap vijtit annis xxxvi uen. u. 

 U. xii.in prediissuis MASSE MANDELANE Sep. retorum Hercules Quesq n pace. 



As it is impossible even fora classical .-.< -holar unaccustomed to the initial con- 

 tractions and changes of h-tters frequent among tht" ancients, to make sense of 

 this inscription (which Chanpy infers from its stile, the form of he letters, and 

 the Christian phrase of qnir^cunt in pace, to have been written alx-ut the end 

 of the third or the beginning of the fourth century). I here subjoin that \\iiich 

 he argues with much ingenuity and plausibility, was intended to be the rra<' <^ 

 at full length, viz. Valeria Maxima JDolibus. omnibus prar'.ita, V i'mn dulcis- 

 sima fiJa qiue vixit annos 36 menses 2. dies 12. in przsJiis suis ^qsia voc.) 

 }VIas?ae Mandelanae Sepulchrmn restituit et ornavit Valerius Maximus Hc-rcul- s. 

 Whatever may be thought of the sense of the inscription, JiV vicinity of MAN- 

 DHLA is fortunately established by it bryond all possible d:>ul>t. 



f The inscription is Imp. Caesar Vespasianus Aug. Pontifex Maximiis Trib. 

 Potestaiis Censor ^Edcm Victorias Votustate dilapsarasua impeusa restituit. 



