Page:Notices by the Rev. T. Surridge ...of Roman inscriptions discovered at High Rochester, Risingham and Rudchester, in Northumberland ... (IA noticesbyrevtsur00surr).pdf/26

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Thorneyburn is, but, wherever it may happen to be, it can scarcely be more conveniently placed, for reference to the first authorities on any subject, than is London. The judgment of one of those authorities on the inscription under discussion has been pronounced in these terms:—

"The reading of the inscription by the two gentlemen in the north is quite correct—the only doubt is that suggested by themselves, and is confined to the prœnomen of Lucilianus the Legate (an unimportant feature in the inscription). The letters EGNAT, with which the fifth line begins, may, as suggested, be read 'Egnatius,' a name which occurs more than once in Greuter, and the letters COR. with which the fourth line ends, may be a contraction of another prœnomen, or of an epithet applied to the 'numerus exploratum' of Bremenium. This must remain a matter of uncertainty; but there is no uncertainty as to any other part of the inscription, which runs thus—

Genio Domini nostri, et Signorum^{[errata 1]},
Cohortis primæ Vardulorum,
Et Numeni Exploratorum Bremenii,
Cor. Egnatius Lucilianus, Legatus
Augustalis Proprætor, curante Cassiô
Sabiniano Tribuno, Aram posuit."

From what has passed, it will be obvious that I do not expect to find in Doctor Surridge the fruits of extensive reading and research; but, the learned doctor might surely have read the history of his own county. If he had done so, he would have found much to confirm the version of this inscription given to us by the Newcastle Antiquaries—he would have found the first cohort of the Varduli and the "Numerus Exploratorum" of Bremenium joined as in this inscription—he would have found the same Cohort dedicating at Bremenium an altar to their Standards and their Genius, and he might have escaped from the predicament of promulgating stark nonsense.

* Quam temere in nosmet legum saneimus iniquam! How rash to establish a severe law against ourselves—Editor.* My object in addressing you has not been, as Dr. Surridge suggests, to stifle inquiry, but to avert the catastrophe which usually attends the process of the blind leading the blind. The conviction is forced upon me that no one in his sober senses could possibly have propounded and persisted in so absurd and preposterous a readingErrata

1. Original: Signorem was amended to Signorum: detail