Volusius Venustus
Volusius Venustus was an aristocrat of the Roman Empire.
Biography
Volusius Venustus set up a monument in the forum of Canosa [di Puglia|Canosa] in honour of Constantine I and his two sons. 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.A Venustus is attested in the year 362, as a member of a senatorial delegation to Antioch to the emperor Julian, who on this occasion nominated this Venustus as vicarius Hispaniarum. In 370, together with Vettius Agorius Praetextatus and Minervius, he comprised a senatorial legation to the Emperor Valentinian I, asking him not to torture those senators involved in trials.
According to a long-standing reconstruction by Otto Seeck, the two previous officers were the same person, who is to be identified with Venustus, the father of Virius Nicomachus Flavianus and grandfather of Nicomachus [Flavianus (son)|Nicomachus Flavianus the younger], and maybe another nephew called Venustus. This Venustus was, therefore, related to the orator Quintus [Aurelius Symmachus], since he was brother-in-law of Lucius Aurelius Avianius Symmachus, father of Aurelius.
However, recently this interpretation has been questioned. The most-widely accepted reconstruction is that the Venustus corrector Apuliae et Calabriae and the vicarius Hispaniarum are two different persons; the first, Volusius Venustus, would be a member of the Ragonii, belonging to the generation between Lucius Ragonius Venustus consul in 240 and the Lucius Ragonius Venustus who performed a taurobolium in 390; the second, Venustus, might have been Nicomachus' father.