Gents Mag 1755 p.360

Gents Mag 1755 p.360




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	Gentleman's Magazine 1755 p.360
roman altar Old Carlisle
	Roman Altar, Old Carlisle Mr URBAN, AS you have often obliged the public with accounts of British and Roman antiquities, which have been discovered in various parts of this island, I send you the best drawing I could make of two Roman altars and a trough, which were very lately found by some workmen as they were digging for the foundation of a ring wall against the common at old Carlisle, about 200 yards east of a Roman legionary garrison. The Agger's praetorium, ditches, and roads belonging to this station are still to be traced by their remains on this uncultivated common, and the Alae Auxiliariae appears by many scattered ruins to have encamped eastward a long way. Some doubt has been made what was the antient name of this place. Mr Cambden gives it no name, though he calls it a famous city: It is indeed most probable that he never saw it, for there are no remains of building besides the fort, of which the wall is here and there still to be seen, and some wretched huts, which seem to have been cobbled up by private soldiers, merely to shelter them from the weather, for the remains of them are of very bad stone, though there is a good quarry at a little distance, to which recourse would certainly have been had if any regular edifices had been raised for more durable purposes, many of which there must have been to constitute a city. Dr Stukeley supposes it have been the Castra Exploratorum, but this also is a very improbable conjecture, for it cannot be thought that Antonine would have begun his itinerary for London here, and computed 12 stadia to Bowness, 12 to Carlisle, and 20 to Penrith, and so on, because this rout, as is plain from the map, is far from being the shortest way, which the Romans, who were eminent for accuracy and expedition, always took. Mr Horsley, with much greater appearance of truth, supposes this place to be the antient Olenacum, and to be garrisoned by the Alae Herculeana. This question, however, would probably be ascertained, if the remainder of the stone, Fig. I. can be found, for which I have directed diligent search to be made, because on this fragment will be seen the name of the cohort which should immediately precede the words cui praeest. The date of this stone is ascertained, as it is said to be consecrated by one AElius Septimianus Rusticus, a praefect in the consulship of Maternus and Bradua. The other stone, Fig. II. is also incompleat, but this seems to have been mutilated at the side by the Romans themselves, for there are marks of their pick all over it. It is dedicated to the health of Septimus Severus, the great triumpher over Britain, and builder of the stone wall, the ruins of which 1500 years have not mouldered away. Fig. III. is a trough to the use of which I confess myself wholly a stranger, and should be glad to see the conjectures of some of your ingenious correspondents on the subject. The altars, Fig. I. and II. are about two feet high, and 15 inches thick; there is no fire place on the top of them, nor any sacrificial vessels on the sides, yet the workmanship is not contemptible. The trough is 22 inches long, 14 wide, and six deep; the rim is about 4 inches and an half; the letters are about 3 inches, very legible, none of them being defaced. The inscriptions I read thus: Fig. I. Cui praeest AElius Septimianus Rusticus praefectus Materno et Bradua Consulibus. Fig. II. Jovi Optimo maximo pro Salute Imperatoris Septimi Severi Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.

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