Vitularia via, a road in the country of Arpinum. Cicero, Letters to his brother Quintus, bk. 3, ltr. 1.
Ulpia Trajāna, a Roman colony planted in Sarmatia by Trajan.
Ulpiānus Domitius, a lawyer in the reign of Alexander Severus, of whom he became the secretary and principal minister. He raised a persecution against the christians, and was at last murdered by the pretorian guards, of which he had the command, A.D. 226. There are some fragments of his compositions on civil law still extant. The Greek commentaries of Ulpian on Demosthenes were printed in folio, 1527, with Aldus Manutius.——Marcellus, an officer in the age of Commodus.——Julianus, a man sent to oppose Heliogabalus, &c.
Ulŭbræ, a small town of Latium on the river Astura, where Augustus was educated. Juvenal, satire 10, li. 102.—Horace, bk. 1, ltr. 11.
Ulysses, a king of the islands of Ithaca and Dulichium, son of Anticlea and Laertes, or, according to some, of Sisyphus. See: [Sisyphus] and [Anticlea]. He became, like the other princes of Greece, one of the suitors of Helen, but as he despaired of success in his applications, on account of the great numbers of his competitors, he solicited the hand of Penelope the daughter of Icarius. Tyndarus the father of Helen favoured the addresses of Ulysses, as by him he was directed to choose one of his daughter’s suitors without offending the others, and to bind them all by a solemn oath, that they would unite together in protecting Helen if any violence was ever offered to her person. Ulysses had no sooner obtained the hand of Penelope, than he returned to Ithaca, where his father resigned him the crown, and retired to peace and rural solitude. The rape of Helen, however, by Paris, did not long permit him to remain in his kingdom, and as he was bound to defend her against every intruder, he was summoned to the war with the other princes of Greece. Pretending to be insane, not to leave his beloved Penelope, he yoked a horse and a bull together, and ploughed the sea-shore, where he sowed salt instead of corn. This dissimulation was soon discovered, and Palamedes, by placing before the plough of Ulysses his infant son Telemachus, convinced the world that the father was not mad who had the providence to turn away the plough from the furrow, not to hurt his child. Ulysses was therefore obliged to go to the war, but he did not forget him who had discovered his pretended insanity. See: [Palamedes]. During the Trojan war, the king of Ithaca was courted for his superior prudence and sagacity. By his means Achilles was discovered among the daughters of Lycomedes king of Scyros [See: [Achilles]], and Philoctetes was induced to abandon Lemnos, and to fight the Trojans with the arrows of Hercules. See: [Philoctetes]. He was not less distinguished for his activity and valour. With the assistance of Diomedes he murdered Rhesus, and slaughtered the sleeping Thracians in the midst of their camp, [See: [Rhesus] and [Dolon]], and he introduced himself into the city of Priam, and carried away the Palladium of the Trojans. See: [Palladium]. For these eminent services he was universally applauded by the Greeks, and he was rewarded with the arms of Achilles, which Ajax had disputed with him. After the Trojan war Ulysses embarked on board his ships to return to Greece, but he was exposed to a number of misfortunes before he reached his native country. He was thrown by the winds upon the coasts of Africa, and visited the country of the Lotophagi, and of the Cyclops in Sicily. Polyphemus, who was the king of the Cyclops, seized Ulysses with his companions, five of whom he devoured [See: [Polyphemus]], but the prince of Ithaca intoxicated him and put out his eye, and at last escaped from the dangerous cave where he was confined, by tying himself under the belly of the sheep of the Cyclops when led to pasture. In Æolia he met with a friendly reception, and Æolus gave him, confined in bags, all the wind which could obstruct his return to Ithaca, but the curiosity of his companions to know what the bags contained proved nearly fatal. The winds rushed with impetuosity, and all the fleet was destroyed, except the ship which carried Ulysses. From thence he was thrown upon the coasts of the Læstrygones, and of the island Æea, where the magician Circe changed all his companions into pigs for their voluptuousness. He escaped their fate by means of an herb which he had received from Mercury, and after he had obliged the magician by force of arms to restore his companions to [♦]their original shape, he yielded to her charms, and made her mother of Telegonus. He visited the infernal regions and consulted Tiresias how to regain his country in safety; and after he had received every necessary information, he returned on earth. He passed along the coasts of the Sirens unhurt, by the directions of Circe [See: [Sirenes]], and escaped the whirlpools and shoals of Scylla, and Charybdis. On the coast of Sicily his companions stole and killed some oxen that were sacred to Apollo, for which the god destroyed the ships, and all were drowned except Ulysses, who saved himself on a plank, and swam to the island of Calypso, in Ogygia. There, for seven years, he forgot Ithaca, in the arms of the goddess, by whom he had two children. The gods at last interfered, and Calypso, by order of Mercury, suffered him to depart, after she had furnished him with a ship, and everything requisite for the voyage. He had almost reached the island of Corcyra, when Neptune, still mindful that his son Polyphemus had been robbed of his sight by the perfidy of Ulysses, raised a storm and sunk his ship. Ulysses swam with difficulty to the island of the Phæacians, where the kindness of Nausicaa, and the humanity of her father king Alcinous, entertained him for a while. He related the series of his misfortunes to the monarch, and at last, by his benevolence, he was conducted in a ship to Ithaca. The Phæacians laid him on the sea-shore as he was asleep, and Ulysses found himself safely restored to his country after a long absence of 20 years. He was well informed that his palace was besieged by a number of suitors, who continually disturbed the peace of Penelope, and therefore he assumed the habit of a beggar, by the advice of Minerva, and made himself known to his son, and his faithful shepherd Eumæus. With them he took measures to re-establish himself on his throne; he went to the palace, and was personally convinced of the virtues and of the fidelity of Penelope. Before his arrival was publicly known, all the importuning suitors were put to death, and Ulysses restored to the peace and bosom of his family. See: [Laertes], [Penelope], [Telemachus], [Eumæus]. He lived about 16 years after his return, and was at last killed by his son Telegonus, who had landed in Ithaca, with the hopes of making himself known to his father. This unfortunate event had been foretold to him by Tiresias, who assured him that he should die by the violence of something that was to issue from the bosom of the sea. See: [Telegonus]. According to some authors, Ulysses went to consult the oracle of Apollo after his return to Ithaca, and he had the meanness to seduce Erippe the daughter of a king of Epirus, who had treated him with great kindness. Erippe had a son by him whom she called Euryalus. When come to years of puberty, Euryalus was sent to Ithaca by his mother, but Penelope no sooner knew who he was than she resolved to destroy him. Therefore, when Ulysses returned, he put to immediate death his unknown son on the crimination of Penelope his wife, who accused him of attempts upon her virtue. The adventures of Ulysses in his return to Ithaca from the Trojan war are the subject of Homer’s Odyssey. Homer, Iliad & Odyssey.—Virgil, Æneid, bks. 2, 3, &c.—Dictys Cretensis, bk. 1, &c.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 13; Heroides, poem 1.—Hyginus, fable 201, &c.—Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 10.—Pausanias, bk. 1, chs. 17 & 22; bk. 3, ch. 12; bk. 7, ch. 4.—Ælian, Varia Historia, bk. 13, ch. 12.—Horace, bk. 3, ode 29, li. 8.—Parthenius, Narrationes Amatoriæ, ch. 3.—Plutarch.—Pliny, bk. 35.—Tzetzes, ad Lycurgus.
[♦] ‘his’ replaced with ‘their’
Ulysseum, a promontory of Sicily, west of Pachinus.
Umber, a lake of Umbria near the Tiber. Propertius, bk. 4, poem 1, li. 124.
Umbra Pompeia, a portico of Pompey at Rome. Martial, bk. 5, ltr. 10.
Umbria, a country of Italy, separated from Etruria by the Tiber, bounded on the north by the Adriatic sea, east by Picenum and the country of the Sabines, and south by the river Nar. Some derive the word Umbria ab imbribus, the frequent showers that were supposed to fall there, or from the shadow (umbra) of the Apennines which hung over it. Umbria had many cities of note. The Umbrians opposed the Romans in the infancy of their empire, but afterwards they became their allies, about the year [♦]A.U.C. 434. Catullus, bk. 40, li. 11.—Strabo, bk. 5.—Pliny, bk. 3, ch. 12.—Dionysius of Halicarnassus.