17
Note.—Commodus was adopted by Adrian, a.d. 136, when his name was changed to Verus Ælius. He died on the 1st of January, 138. Antoninus was adopted in his stead, on the 25th of February, a.d. 138, and Adrian died on the 10th of July following, when Antoninus became sole Emperor. My retired residence, debarring me access to other ancient authorities, my research was of course limited to the only books which, in this retired situation, I could with facility obtain, and consisted merely of Tacitus and a borrowed first volume of Suetonius, in neither of which is there any account of the Antonines. I was, therefore, at a loss to account for the Agnomen Urbicus attached to the name of Quinctius Lollius, in the third line of the inscription published in the Newcastle Journal of the 18th of December last. Ainsworth does not give it, and Lemprier gives only one of the name, (Urbicus) an actor (in the reign of Domitian) who was probably so called from his city popularity. The Emperor Augustus, in order to relieve himself of some portion of the arduous duties which he at first exercised in his own person, by the advice of Macænas, his prime minister, appointed a City Officer, tantamount to our Lord Mayor of London, who was called Præfectus Urbicus, to distinguish him from other præfects; and a passage in Echard's Ecclesiastical History inclines me to believe that Quinctius Lollius may have held that office, and, during his prefecture, have been sent into Britain, as Augustan Lieutenant and Proprætor, in which case he would have retained his official name of Urbicus, as our Lord Mayor of London would do, during the continuance of his office, wherever he went.
HIGH ROCHESTER PROVED NOT TO BE BREMENIUM.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEWCASTLE JOURNAL.
Dear Sir,—I have to apologize to Sir Walter Trevelyan and Mr. Smith for permitting their letters of October last to remain so long unacknowledged. I considered both to be good letters; but until now I had no opportunity of consulting the authorities on which they relied for their side of the argument—Mr. Bruce's Roman Wall supplies the deficiency, and I lose no time to avail myself of it in order to set those gentlemen right on the subject, and to convince them that the Roman Bremenium has not yet been discovered at High Rochester, nor do I apprehend it is likely to be found there.
High Rochester is not Bremenium.—Proved.
The author of the Roman Wall, in page 305, quotes from the itinerary, erroneously attributed to Antoninus Pius, stating—
