The Annia gens was ancient and its first known member is mentioned by Livy as praetor of Setia, in central Italy, for the year 340 BC; the branch of the Annii Veri settled in the colony of Ucubi (modern Espejo) near Corduba (modern Córdoba) in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica.
This is apparently the cause for a "very strange inscription, found on a large marble tablet excavated in the sixteenth century at St. Peter's in Rome" which alludes to this achievement while celebrating his skill "playing with a glass ball".
Edward Champlin notes it was likely the creation of a friendly rival, Lucius Julius Ursus Servianus, who also held the consulate three times the last after Verus.
The aged L. Iulius Servianus wrote the piece himself, had it engraved on a marble slab - perhaps accompanying it with the statue of a toga-clad bear playing ball?
Verus had at least three children by Faustina:[8] Ronald Syme suggests, based on onomastic evidence, that they had a fourth child, a daughter Annia, who married Gaius Ummidius Quadratus Sertorius Severus.