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NOTES ON LATIN INSCRIPTIONS FOUND IN BRITAIN.

PART V.*

BY THE REV JOHN MCAUL, LL.D.,

PRESIDENT OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, TORONTO.

16. In Horsley's Britannia Romana, Northumberland, xcvi., we have the following inscription:

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Since Part IV. was published, I have had access to the Archæologia Eliana, and have read the paper by Mr. Hodgson, to which reference is made in my note in page 355. In that paper, after a critical examination in detail of each phrase or passage of the inscription, Mr. H. proposes the following reading of it:

"IMPP.CAESS.

L.SEP.SEVERO PIO PERT.P.M.

ARAB. PARTH. ADIABENICO MAXI.
COS. III. ET M. AVREL. ANTONINO PIO

COS. II. AVG. ET P.SEPT. GETAE. NOB. CAES. COS
PORTAM CVM MVRIS VETVSTATE DI-
LAPSIS JVSSV ALFEN. SENECINIS VO
COS.CVRANTE COL. ANITI. ADVENTO PRO
AVG.NN. COH.I.VANGION.
CVM AEMI. SALVIAN. TRIB.
SVO A SOLO RESTI.

Which may thus be explained at length :

Imperatoribus Cæsaribus

Lucio Septimio Severo Pio Pertinaci, Pontifici Maximo,
Arabico, Parthico, Adiabenico Maximo,

Consuli tertiùm, et Marco Aurelio Antonino Pio,

Consuli secundo, Augustis, et Publio Septimio Getæ, nobilissimo Cæsari, consuli
Portam cum Muris Vetustate di

lapsis, Jussu Alfeni Senecinis (Senecionis?) Viri

Consularis, curante Antistio (or Anitistio) Advento, pro
Augustis nostris, Cohors prima Vangionum

Cum Emilio Salviane, Tribuno

Suo, a Solo restituit."

On comparison with the reading which I proposed in No. XXIII. of this Journal, p. 359, it will be observed that there are several points of difference; but on re-consideration of the

Horsley expands it thus: "Silvano Pantheo pro salute Rufini tribuni et Lucillæ ejus Eutychus libertus consulis votum solvit - libens merito," and supplies uxori after ejus, in the fifth line. The only doubt which I have as to the accuracy of this expansion, relates to LIB COS. If Eutychus had been a freedman of the Consul, as Horsley believed, the order, according to usage, would have been COS LIB; and instead of the office, consul, the name of the individual would have been given, for consuls, as such, had no liberti. I regard LIB as standing for Librarius, and COS for consulis. The librarius was a book-keeper, who had charge of the accounts, and is mentioned in many inscriptions, in connexion with the officer or body in whose service he was, e. gr. LIB PRAEF Librarius Præfecti, LIB CH, Librarius cohortis.

17. Amongst the Marmora Oxoniensia is an altar, found at Chester, bearing an inscription of the date A.D. 154, which has been frequently copied and explained.*

There can be but little doubt that the true reading of the inscription is as follows:

subject, I see no reason for changing the opinions which I have expressed in the article and embodied in the restoration. The only question, about which some doubt is suggested, relates to the date. The notice in the iuscription of Caracalla as Cos. II. of course fixes the date within the cancelli-205, the year of his second consulship, and 208, the year of his third consulship. Mr. Hodgson argues for 207, assuming that the emperors were at the time în Britain, and adopting Horsley's opinion that "Severus came into the island in the year 207 at latest." He finds confirmation of his assumption as to the presence of the emperors, in the title of Senecio being in this inscription vir consularis, instead of legatus eorum pr. pr., as it appears on a stone found at Greta Bridge.

Although the conjecture, that the change of title indicates "the exercise in person [by the emperors] of both the military and civil powers of the government, rendering the office of legate no longer necessary," seems plausible, yet there can, I think, be no doubt that both Mr. Horsley and Mr. Hodgson are in error in fixing 207 as the year of the arrival of the emperors in Britain. The statement of Xiphiline, that Severus died in the island "three years after he undertook the British expedition," suggests 208 as the date of his arrival, for he died in 211 (on February the 4th; not the 12th, as given by Mr. Hodgson in a note); and this date (208) is confirmed by reference to coins e. gr., one of Caracalla's bearing the legend:

PROF.AVGG.PONTIF.TR.P.XI COS.III.

from which it appears that the profectio Augustorum took place in the eleventh TRIB. POT. and third COS. of Caracalla, i.e. 208. I am still of opinion, for the reason stated in the note, p. 359, that 205 is the most probable date of the inscription, although it is possible that the intention of those who set up the stone may have been to indicate that the work was commenced, carried on, and completed during the time in which Severus was COS.III, Caracalla COS. II., and Geta COS.

It is especially interesting on account of the epithet Tanarus, which is given to Jupi. ter; and the supposition is not improbable, that Tanarus, Taras, and Taranuncus denote the same deity, the Thor of the northern nations.

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Of the interpretations which have been proposed, the most extraordinary is that given by De Wal, in his Mythologia Septentrionalis Monumenta. He expands it thus:

"Jovi Optimo Maximo Tanaro,

Titus Elupius, Galeria tribu,

et Præsens, Guntia tribu,

Primipilares legionis xx Valeria Victricis,
Commodo et

Laterano consulibus,

Votum solvunt lubenter merito."

The obvious objections to this rendering are, that there is no ground for supposing that the altar was erected by two persons, and that there is no authority for a tribe called Guntia. I can see no reason for rejecting the opinion adopted by Horsley (Britannia Romana, p. 315), and Orelli (n. 2054), that GVNTIA is the name of the birth-place of Titus Elupius Præsens, scil. Guntia, a town in Vindelicia The legitimus ordo nominum, from the prænomen to the patria, is thus preserved, with the exception, indeed, of the nomen patris, but that is omitted in the inscription. Gough's objection (Camden's Britannia, vol. iv. p. 89) to the position of the tribe (Galeria) between the names (Elupius and Præsens), with his consequent preference of Galerius, is not worth considering; for it is plain that he was not aware that, in the normal arrangement of Latin names, the nomen patris and tribus come between the nomen gentilicium and the cognomen. And yet Mr. Wright (Celt, Roman, and Saxon, p. 260), influenced perhaps by the objection, gives Galerius.

Horsley suggests a doubt whether we should read PRI for primipilus, or PRE for præfectus; but there seems no ground for questioning the received reading. With Henzen, however, I think it uncertain whether we should regard it as standing for primipilus or

princeps. Of the two I prefer the latter, as we find PRI PRI. for princeps prior, or primus, in Orelli, n. 3451.

ter on

18. In the Celt, Roman, and Saxon, there is an instructive chap"The different races in Roman Britain," in which Mr. Wright has collected the scattered notices which bear on the Ethnology of the period. As might be expected in a task of considerable labour, and involving many minute details, some errors have crept in, which require notice, lest they should mislead others. One of these (page 253) is, that "Caius Antiochus Lysimachus, commemorated in a Greek inscription found in Scotland, was no doubt a Greek."

Mr. Wright has been led into error by a mistake in Professor Thomson's edition of Stuart's Caledonia Romana. In No. 1 of Plate VI. of that work,* a stone, preserved in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, is figured, in which the name Lysimachus occurs; but the stone was found, not in Scotland, but in Africa, and Prof. Thomson acknowledges the mistake in his preface. 19. Mr. Wright also remarks, in the same chapter:

"Uriconium (Wroxeter) appears to have been occupied by Thracians; Cirencester by Thracians and Indians."

There is no doubt that an inscription has been found at each of those places, which furnishes evidence that a horseman of a Thracian cohort was buried in each, but there is no ground for the assertion that there were "Indians" at Cirencester. An inscription, indeed, was found there, commemorating Dannicius, a horseman ala Indiana; but this body did not derive its name from the nationality of the men composing it. It was probably called after Julius Indus, mentioned in Tacit. Ann., iii. 42; and there is reason to believe that the men serving in it were, for the most part, Treviri. The alæ seem to have received such designationst as Indiana, Frontoniana, Sebosiana, from the names of the officers who first raised or organized them, and in this respect resembled the military bodies in our own service in the East Indies, known by such names as "Jacob's," or "Hodson's Horse."

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The stone is a sepulchral memorial of Antiochis, the daughter of Lysimachus. It is not easy to tell, from the faint copy which I have before me, what the letters are which Mr. Wright read "Caius;" but they unquestionably do not stand for that name. The first letter seems to be L, from which I infer that they most probably are sigla for the year of the Emperor, as is common in the Greek inscriptions of Egypt and Cyrene.

+ Vide Henzen, nn. 5442 and 6722; also Roulez, Mem. de l'Acad. Royale de Belgique vol. xxvii. p. 12.

20. In 1830, an ancient grave-stone was found in excavating the foundations of Mr. J. S. Padley's house, in Lincoln. It is figured in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1842, p. ii. p. 351; and the inscription is given in the Monumenta Historica Britannica, p. cxii. n. 53a; and by Henzen, n. 6676, as follows:

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It is plain that the first two lines are to be read

L[ucii] Semproni[i] Fla

vini mil[i]tis leg[ionis] nonæ

:

but there is considerable doubt as to the word or words preceding SEVERI, in the third line. Mr. Padley remarks, that if the first letter in the line be Q, it may stand for quadratæ, i.e. legionis none quadrate; and reads the following word as "Alauda (a lark), a name given to legions, the soldiers of which wore tufted helmets, supposed to resemble the crest of the lark." The Editor of the Magazine suggests that the letter is G (not Q), "and is certainly some epithet of the legio Alauda. Perhaps galeata alaudâ, crested by the lark; or galeritæ alaudâ." The rest of the line, I SEVERI, is read by Mr. Padley as Julii Severi, and the reading is illustrated by the observation that "Julius Severus was a governor of Britain under Hadrian." The Editor of the Monumenta Historica Britannica adopts Alauda, but doubts whether I should be read as Julius or Junius, as there were two proprætors of Britain named Severus; the one, Julius, under Hadrian, the other, Junius, under Commodus. Henzen is of opinion that the latent reading of the line is "Sub curA (or something similar) CLAVDI SEVERI." I have but little doubt that Henzen's emendation CLAVDI is correct; and I regard the first A in ALAVD as a mistake for C. One of the cognomina of the 5th legion was Alaude; whilst those of the 9th were Hispanica and Macedonica. The first letter of the line, which is stated to resemble "the letter q inverted," and "the Etruscan G, the Roman G reversed," appears to me to be merely an inverted C, standing, as it often does, for centuria, and denoting

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