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Roman Altar,
Plumpton
Explanation of a Roman Altar. ...
Mr. URBAN,
OBSERVING in your Magazine for last month an engraving of
the Roman Altar found at Plimpton Wall, in Cumberland (which
altar, in the year 1786, was in the possession of a Mr.
Sanderson, though now said to have been recently purchased
by one Hutton, a guide to the lakes), and your correspondent
Peregrinator requesting an explanation of the inscription, I
beg leave, by the same channel, to submit the following to
the consideration of your readers.
DEO
MARYI
BELAIVCAD
ROEIN[UM]I
NIBAYCC
IVLIVSAV
GVSTALIS
ACIORIVLLV
PIPRET
Deo
Marti
Belatucad
ro et Numi
nib(us) Augg(ustorum)
Julius Au
gustalis
Actor Jul(ii) Lu
pi Pref(ecti posuit.)
To the God
Mars Belatucader
and the Deities
of the Emperors(Marcus
Aurelius and Lucius
Verus; or more probably
Severus and Caracalla,
or Caracalla and Geta)
Julius Augustalis
Agent of Juliuis Lupus
the Prefect hath placed
or dedicated.
From the foregoing inscription, which, from a gentleman's
account of it who has accurately viewed it, is perfectly
fair and legible, and the stone between the words
Marti and Belatucadro no way injured or
mutilated, so as to admit of a conjecture of there ever
having been a fuller reading; it seems to me, that the term
Belatucader must thereby decidedly applied to mean
the same with, and synonymous to, that of Mars, or one and
the same deity under two different denominations, about
which there has heretofore been great contrariety of opinion
among the Learned, whether that appellation belonged to Mars
or Apollo. May not the inscription on this altar serve,
therefore, to settle such difference of opinion, by adducing
it as evidence in confirmation of its conveying those
different names of the same deity in stronger and
unequivocal terms? All altars dedicated to the god
Belatucader, which probably might be the British or other
well-known local names for, and of the same import with, the
Roman Mars, have been very rare and uncommon, and are not
hitherto known to have been found except in Cumberland and
Westmoreland,
FRED. S. SCARISBING.
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