Biography
Volusius Venustus set up a monument in the forum of Canosa in honour of Constantine I and his two sons (the fact that only two sons are honoured means that the monument was set up between 317 and 333, less the period between 324 and 326). This monument is a clue that he was from this city in southern Italia; it also marks his office, the one of corrector Apuliae et Calabriae (governor of the region corresponding to modern Puglia).
A Venustus is attested in 362, as member of a senatorial legation to Antioch to emperor Julian, who, in this occasion, nominated this Venustus vicarius Hispaniarum (362-363). In 370, together with Vettius Agorius Praetextatus and Minervius, he formed a senatorial legation to the Emperor Valentinian I, asking him to avoid torture for those senators involved in trials.
According to a long-standing reconstruction by Otto Seek, the two previous officers were the same person, who is to be identified with the Venustus father of Virius Nicomachus Flavianus and grandfather of Nicomachus Flavianus and maybe another nephew called Venustus. This Venustus was, therefore, related to orator Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (also father-in-law of Flavianus the younger), since he was brother-in-law of Lucius Avianus Symmachus, father of Aurelius.
However, recently this interpretation has been put under discussion. The most-widely accepted reconstruction is that the Venustus corrector Apuliae et Calabriae and the vicarius Hispaniarum are two different officers; the first, Volusius Venustus, would be a member of the Ragonii, belonging to the generation between Ragonius Venustus consul in 260 and the Lucius Ragonius Venustus who performed a taurobolium in 390; the second, Venustus, might have been Nicomachus' father.
Read more about this topic: Volusius Venustus
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