GREX

 H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA -- GREX -- VERBALIA: VARIO   Aureus of Elagabalus, depicting the Black Stone of Emesa, emblem of Sol Invictus, being driven in a quadriga. The gens Varia was a plebeian family of ancient Rome. Its members appear in history toward the end of the Roman Republic, when its most celebrated representative was the Augustan poet Lucius Varius Rufus, a friend and contemporary of both Horace and Vergil, with whom his works were favourably compared.[1][2] A number of Varii held magistracies and other offices, but only one, Quintus Varius Ambibulus, is known to have attained the consulship, in AD 128. Still later, the emperor Elagabalus was descended from a family of the Varii that had settled in Syria.[3]  Origin The nomen gentilicium Varius is derived from the cognomen Varus, or "knock-kneed", one of a broad class of surnames derived from the physical traits of the individuals who bore them.[4] Chase classes it among those gentilicia that were eit...