Gents Mag 1866 part 2 p.470

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	list, 3rd qtr 19th century
	Gentleman's Magazine 1866 part 2 p.470
roman altar   Skinburness
	Roman Altar, Skinburness ... ... Cumberland. - A portion of an inscribed Roman altar has recently been discovered by Mr. Wilkinson of Kendal. It was lying amongst boulder stones on the sea-shore, to the south of a small haven called Skinburness, on the Cumberland coast. It reads: MATRIBV. PARVITI. VAC.IM ? ... ... ... which Dr. Bruce reads, no doubt correctly, Matribus Parcis, etc. Inscriptions to the Parcae were heretofore so rarely found in this country, that Horsley does not appear to give a single example. Yet Dr. Bruce,for the third edition of his "Roman Wall," has collected no less than three, including the above. The others were discovered a few years since at Carlisle, so that they seem somewhat confined to a particular district. In one these deities are addressed simply as the Parcae (PARCIS): PARCIS PROBO DONATALIS PATER . V . S . L.M. In the third, as in the first, they are style Matres: MATRIBVS . PARC . PRO . SALVT(e) SANCTAE . GEMINAE and all are dedications for the health, and well-being of children or other relations. It is not strange that the Fates, being three, should, in the north of Britain, be addressed as mothers, considering how very common was the worship of the Deae Matres, and how very pliable the Roman mythology could be made, especially in the provinces. They were styled also Dominae and Victrices. Upon the gold coins of Diocletian and Maximian, the Parcae are represented standing, each holding a torch upon a rudder in their right hands joined together, and they are here inscribed FATIS VICTRICIBVS. The whole of these interesting inscriptions are engraved, and will appear in the forthcoming new edition of Dr. Bruce's "Roman Wall," which contains a considerable number of new inscriptions and sculptures, which cannot be fully understood without the help of correct drawing and engraving. The discovery of the first of these altars is also of some topographical interest. In a private letter Dr. Bruce writes: "In the second edition of my book on the Wall, p.347, I say:- 'A military way ran along the coast from this station (Moresby, near Whitehaven), by way of Maryport, to the extremity of the Wall at Bowness.' This altar is confirmatory of my statement. I have no doubt that the Romans used the creek or harbour of Skinburness. in the 13th century, Skinburness was a considerable market-town (founded, I have little doubt, upon Roman remains); but in 1301, by a great irruption of the
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