VARIA (mod. Vicovaro)  , an ancient village of Latium, Italy, in the valley of the Anio, on its right bank, and on the Via . Valeria, 8 m . N.E. of Tibur (Tivoli) . It was probably an independent town and not within the territory of Tibur, and Horace speaks of it as Sabine . Some remains of its walls, in rectangular blocks of travertine, still exist . One mile to the east is a picturesque gorge of the Anio, in which may be seen remains of the ancient aqueducts which supplied Rome, consisting partly of rock-cut channels and partly of ruined bridges: above it is the monastery of S Cosimato . Close to this point begins the valley of the Digentia (mod . Licenza) in which Horace's Sabine farm, was situated . On the hill at the east of the entrance is the village of Cantalupo or Bardella, which has now assumed the name of Mandela, being identified thus (correctly) with Horace's " rugosus frigore pagus " (Epist. i. r8, 104) . An inscription of the Christian period, found at S Cosimato, speaks of the Massa Mandelana (Corp . Inscr . Lat. xiv .

3482) . About 3 M . Up the valley, close to the road on the

west (right) bank of the stream, are traces of a Roman dwelling-house in opus reticulatum with remains of two mosaic pavements; this is generally identified with the villa of Horace, and probably corresponds fairly closely with its site . That the Fons Bandusiae was near the Sabine farm is not a necessary inference from Od. iii . 13, in which alone it is mentioned; though the scholiasts state it; indeed a fountain of this name near Venusia is mentioned in a bull of 1103 . On the other hand, that there was an abundant fountain near the Sabine farm is clear from Epist. i . 16 . 12, and Sat. ii . 6 . 2 . It is generally identified with the Fonte dei Ratini, but the spring of Vigna la Corte, a little farther north, is still more plentiful . Some have supposed that the site of the villa was higher up the hillside, above Rocca Giovane .

For Horace speaks of having written Epist. i. to "

post fanum putre Vacunae," and an inscription recording a temple of Victoria restored by Vespasian was copied at Rocca Giovane in the 16th century (Corp . Inscr . Lat . XiV . 3485) . The identification of Victoria with the Sabine goddess Vacuna is not, however, absolutely certain: and there is here, as elsewhere in Roman literature, a play on the connexion of the name with vacare, " to take a holiday." In any case, the site of the Sabine farm can be approximately, if not exactly, fixed as in the neighbourhood of Rocca Giovane . See T . Berti, La villa di Orazio (Rome, 1886) ; G . Boissier, Nouvelles promenades archeologiques (Paris, 1886) . (T .