ia, on the important road from Beneventum to
Corfinium, which connected the Via Appia and the Via Valeria. The
original city occupied the height (Civita) above the modern town, where
remains of Cyclopean walls still exist, while the Roman town (probably
founded after the Social War, in which Bovianum was the seat of the
Samnite assembly) lay in the plain. It acquired the name _Undecimanorum_
when Vespasian settled the veterans of the Legio XI. Claudia there. Its
remains have been covered by over 30 ft. of earth washed down from the
mountains. Comparatively few inscriptions have been discovered. (2)
VETUS (near Pietrabbondante, 5 m. S. of Agnone and 19 m. N.W. of
Campobasso), according to Th. Mommsen (_Corpus Inscrip. Lat._ ix.
Berlin, 1883, p. 257) the chief town of the Caraceni. It lay in a remote
situation among the mountains, and where Bovianum is mentioned the
reference is generally to Bovianum Undecimanorum. Remains of
fortifications and lower down of a temple and a theatre (cf. _Romische
Mitteilungen_, 1903, 154)--the latter remarkable for the fine
preservation of the stone seats of the three lowest rows of the
auditorium--are to be seen. No less than eight Oscan inscriptions have
been found. (T. As.)

BOVIDAE, the name of the family of hollow-horned ruminant mammals
typified by the common ox (_Bos taurus_), and specially characterized by
the presence on the skulls of the males or of both sexes of a pair of
bony projections, or cores, covered in life with hollow sheaths of horn,
which are never branched, and at all events after a very early stage of
existence are permanently retained. From this, which is alone sufficient
for diagnostic purposes, the group is often called the Cavicornia. For
other characteristics see PECORA. The _Bovidae_ comprise a great number
of genera and species, and include the oxen, sheep, goats, antelopes and
certain other kinds which come under neither of these designations. In
stature they range from the size of a hare to that of a rhinoceros; and
their horns vary in size and shape from the small and simple spikes of
the oribi and duiker antlers to the enormous and variously shaped
structures borne respectively by buffaloes, wild sheep and kudu and
other large antelopes. In geographical distribution the _Bovidae_
present a remarkable contrast to the deer tribe, or _Cervidae_. Both of
these families are distributed over the whole of the northern
hemisphere, but whereas the Cervidae a