that Lucius Sempronius Flavinus was a soldier in that century of the 9th legion, which was under the command of Claudius Severus. Such a notice of the century, with the name of the centurion, is frequently found in the sepulchral inscriptions of soldiers. То Mr. Padley's reading of the next line, "aerum vii; annorum xxx," there can be no objection, as aerum is sometimes used for stipendiorum. Vide Orelli, nn. 3551, 3552; and Henzen, nn. 5202, 6841. The fifth line is read by Mr. Padley as "Ispanica Leria;" and the sixth as "Civitas Materna." Henzen adopts this reading of the fifth line, remarking that Leria was a city of Hispania Tarraconensis; but suggests, for the sixth, instead of "Civitas Materna," "Civi Ma[ximi exempli.]" There are, I think, but few scholars who would regard either of these interpretations of the last line as satisfactory; and on reference to the copy of the inscription in the Magazine, I find that there is no authority on the stone for the second I in CIVI, and that MA is most probably an erroneous reading of NIA. It appears to me, then, that we may read the last line thus C IVNIA, curante Junia, denoting the person who had caused the memorial of Flavinus to be executed. For the reasons which I have stated, I would read the whole inscription in extenso thus: 21. At the Mount, near York, there has been recently discovered "a slab, upwards of six feet long, with four incised figures in the upper part, and below them an inscription of six lines, of which nearly the whole is legible." "The inscription, as far as it can be deciphered, reads as follows: D M. FLAVIAE AVGVSTINAE VIXIT AN XXXVIIII M. VIID. XI. FILIVS NVS AVGVSTINVS VXT AN·I·D· III AN I M VIIII D. V CAERESIVS [i.e.: D[iis] M[anibus] Flaviæ Augustinæ ; Vixit an[nis] xxxviiii, m[ensibus] vii, d[iebus xi.] Filius The Rev. J. Kenrick lately read a paper on the subject before the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, from the report of which, in the Gentleman's Magazine for January, 1860, I have taken the foregoing particulars. On the interpretation of the inscription, Mr. Kenrick offered the following remarks: "The monument appears to have been raised by Cæresius, a soldier of the sixth conquering legion, to the Manes of his wife, Flavia Augustina, and two children, who died in their infancy, and prospectively for himself. Only the termination, NVS, of the son's name remains; there is room on the stone for the letters necessary to form FLAVIANVS, which is not unlikely to have been the name. But the space before the term of life, in the fourth line, is so small, that there is only room for a single name, and we must suppose an ellipsis of VIXIT to be supplied from the preceding clause. CAERESIVS is a name, which, in the forms CAERETIVS and CAERECIVS, occurs in Gruter. The beginning of the fifth line may have contained the second name of Cæresius, which one might have expected to be followed by some designation of his military character or office, as CENT MIL. or TRIB MIL. It is difficult to find any word ending in I, which could grammatically have stood in this position. The number of the cohort is often prefixed to the names of auxiliaries, prætorians, &c., but not of legionaries; and though the number of stipendia and years of service is often noted in inscriptions to deceased soldiers, it could hardly be looked for on a monument which a soldier had prepared for himself. It is natural to conjecture that the I is a remnant of an L, in which case MIL may have preceded the title of the legion, but the appearance of the stone does not favour the conjecture. The space at the beginning of the sixth line is, no doubt, to be filled up with the remaining letters of CARISSIMAE." The only difficulty in the inscription is, as Mr. Kenrick points out, in the I before LEG. He justly rejects the suppositions that the number either of the cohort or of the stipendia is denoted by I as a numeral. The natural conjecture is certainly that it should be read L, as the last letter of MIL; but that is not favoured by the appearance of the stone. Under the circumstances, I am inclined to propose PRI, as in article 17 of this paper, for PRI[NCEPS]. There is little use in speculating on the second name of Carecius; but there seems to be sufficient space before PRI for some such as FVSCVS, the cognomen of the Carecius mentioned in p. ccclxxix, n. 6, of Gruter. 22.* At Corbridge (the ancient Cortospitum), two altars were found bearing Greek inscriptions. One of them is figured in Dr. Bruce's Roman Wall, p. 313, and the inscription is thus translated: Of Astarte, « ΑΣΤΑΡΤΗΣ ΠΟΥΛΧΕΡ Μ ΑΝΕΘΗΚΕΝ The altar You see, Pulcher replaced." This translation omits that pleasing characteristic, which is often found in Greek inscriptions, whereby the object is regarded as addressing the reader; and not only is ME overlooked in the second and in the fourth line, but the sense of ANEOHKEN is not correctly expressed. It does not mean "replaced," but "set up," "erected," "dedicated." Mr. Wright, p. 269, correctly renders it: "Of Astarte the altar me you see, Pulcher me dedicated." i.e. You see me the altar of Astarte; Pulcher dedicated me. He also notices the circumstance, that the inscription "forms a line in Greek hexameter verse." It is strange, that, being aware of this, he did not observe that a slight emendation will give the same structure in the inscription on the other altar. Following Horsley, he reads: It is plain that TIPPIO destroys the metre, and that the verse should stand thus: i.e. ΗΡΑΚΛΕΙ ΤΥΡΙΩ ΔΙΟΔΩΡΑ ΑΡΧΙΕΡΕΙΑ. Ἡρακλεῖ Τυρίῳ Διοδώρα ἀρχιέρεια. In another Greek inscription, found at Chester, in, I believe, 1856, we have also an Hexameter, which has escaped the notice of Dr. * As the number of Greek inscriptions found in Britain is very small, I have thought it better to incorporate any remarks, which I have to offer on them, with my Notes on Latin Inscriptions. J. Y. Simpson, in his paper on the subject in the Proceedings of the Soc. of Antiq. of Scotland, vol. ii. p. i. p. 80. He reads the words, which form the verse, thus: ΕΡΜΟΓΕΝΗΣ ΙΑΤΡΟΣ ΒΩΜΟΝ ΤΟΝΑΑΝΕΘΗΚΑ. i.e. ΕΡΜΟΓΕΝΗΣ ΙΑΤΡΟΣ ΒΩΜΟΝ ΤΟΝΑ ΑΝΕΘΗΚΑ. It is evident that the fourth letter in the third line is not A but ▲, and that the E, which follows it in TONAE, is here elided. Accordingly the verse should be: ΕΡΜΟΓΕΝΗΣ ΙΑΤΡΟΣ ΒΩΜΟΝ ΤΟΝΔ' ΑΝΕΘΗΚΑ. i.e. I, Hermogenes, a physician, dedicated this altar. 23. In Mr. C. Roach Smith's Collectanea Antiqua, vol. i. p. 135, a grave-stone, which was found some sixty years ago in Whitechapel, London, is figured; and the following explanation is given of the inscription which is on it: "D.M. IVL. VALIVS C. A. FLAVIO ATTIO. HER Dus Manibus. Julius Valius miles legionis vicesima valentis victricis, anno quadragesimo, hic sepultus est. Caio Aurelio herede." There is no difference between this expansion and that proposed in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. liv. p. 672, excepting the emendation of the number of the legion, which Mr. Smith correctly gives as xx, instead of xxx, and the accidental omission of Flavio Attio between Aurelio and herede. As there are obvious objections to this rendering, I would read the inscription thus: D.M. IVL VALIVS D[iis] M[anibus]; MIL LEG XXV.V Mil[es] leg[ionis] xx V[aleria] V[ictricis], * The preceding words [ΣΩΤ] ΗΡΣΙΝ [ΥΙΙ] ΕΡΜΕΝΕΣΙΝ seem to be a portion of sn irregular pentameter. 24. In the same work of Mr. Smith's, vol. iii. p. 201, we find the following notice of "an imperfect inscription found at Caernarvon (Segontium), which was contributed to the Archælogia Cambrensis,' by Mr. James Foster." "It is on two pieces of stone, which, on comparison, appeared to have belonged to one and the same slab; "The first two lines mention Severus and Caracalla; the second and third [third and fourth] refer to an aqueduct or aqueducts, which, having become decayed through age, had been restored by the first cohort of the Tungri; that is to say, presuming the SVNC of the engraving in the "Archæologia Cambrensis " for April, 1853, should be TVNG. The remaining lines probably gave the name of the commander of the cohort, and that of the superintendent of the work of restitution." It is plain, that Mr. Smith correctly explains [S]EPT[IMIVS] SEVERVS PIVS • PER[TINAX] [A]VREL[IVS] ANTONINV[S] as standing for the Emperors Severus and Caracalla; and AQVAEDVCTIVM VETVS[TATE] [COLLA]BS[VM] COH[ORS] I SVNC RESTÍT[VIT] as referring to an aqueduct, which, having become decayed through age, had been restored. Nor is his opinion as to the contents of the fifth and sixth lines improbable; but I have no doubt that the cohort named in the fourth line is not cohors prima Tungrorum, but cohors prima Sunuc[orum], the N and V being ligulate. This cohort is mentioned in the tabula honesta missionis found at Stannington, in Yorkshire (Gough's Camden, iii. p. 263, Monum. Hist. Brit. n. 9), from which it appears that at the time (A.D. 124) it was serv *I regard aquæductium as used for aquæductum. |