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Roman Altar
Mr URBAN,
I HAD the pleasure of yours in relation to the Altar I sent
you, which was so much more necessary, as having procur'd
Baron Clark's own Remarks on the Reading since I
wrote to you. It may now be published, with the Conjectures
of two of the best Antiquaries of the Age (the Baron and Mr
Ward). I have drawn them up as below.
THIS remarkable ALTAR to FORTUNE was lately
discover'd in ye outer Room of a Bath at Netherby, it
being, as Baron Clark conjectures, a peculiar
Ceremony in the Worship of that Goddess, to purify the
Priest and the People with Water. That judicious Antiquary
grounds his Opinion on a Yorkshire Altar, dedicated
to the same Power; for which I refer you to Horsley's
Brit. Romana, Page 304.
The Letters are very fair, but attended with considerable
Difficulty in the Reading, by means of the peculiar
Signature (X) at Bottom, which the Baron says was the
ancient Manner of writing M; and indeed it appears to be so
from Ol. Wormius's Runic Characters. See also
Hick's Antiq. literat Septentr. He therefore assigns
three various Readings to it as below.
DEAE * SANCTAE FORTUNAE CONSERVATRICI, MARCUS
AURELIUS † FAVIUS TRIBUNUS ‡ COHORTIS PRIMAE
AELIAE HISPANORUM
1. MILLE EQUITUM
2. MILLIARIA EQUITATA
3. CUM MILLE EQUITIBUS
VOTUM SOLVIT LUBENS MERITO.
Of these he prefers the two first, and chiefly the second.
Mr Ward thinks it should read MILLITUM EQUESTRIUM;
and, if the Baron's first Method and this be right, what a
Profusion of Criticism would have been sav'd to
Salmasius, Lipsius, Caufabon &c. concerning
equestrian Cohorts, had this signal Stone been
discovered a few Centuries sooner! I know not but these
Disputes about equestrian Cohorts might have also
induced Mr Horsley to read the like Signature
milliaria, or millenaria Cohors in a
Durham Inscription in the Vardalorum Cranei (a
Spanish People). See Brit. Rom. p.295. But as
the Cohors milliaria seems to be a general Name for
every first Cohort, I should rather prefer the
mille equitum or militum equestrium, because
the Cohors prima and milliaria appear to me
one of them superfluous.
There is, if I mistake not, but one other Stone yet
discovered that has a like Signature, and that is in the
University of Glasgow, where it occurs four Times
together on the same Altar, and must be there a Numeral.
See Brit. Rom. p.197.
Mr Horsley conjectures that the Romans have
made a Ligature of the direct and reverted C, connected with
the Numeral X, for ten Hundred, or a Thousand, as thus (X)
and so that Signature came in Use for mille; if so,
it must admit of no other Reading but mille Equi-
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