The site of this station, no doubt a large one, must be considered to have been well-chosen. It is a tract of fine dry land sheltered from the north, with a sunny aspect and slope to the south, on which side it communicated with, and was bounded by, a broad river.

Its elevated position to the north afforded a very commanding view of the country, whilst the long and steep ascent to it on that side rendered defence easy.

ART. XVIII. On the Altars recently found in the Roman Camp at Maryport. By Dr. Collingwood Bruce.

Read at Maryport, July 17th, 1870.

THE north of England is rich in Roman inscriptions. Comparatively few have been found in the south; but fortunate as we are in this respect, never before, probably, were the antiquaries of this district able to rejoice over such a sudden acquisition of treasure as we have before us to-day. Within a brief space, not less than seventeen altars have been exhumed on a spot of ground outside the camp of Maryport, and all of these, with a single exception, bear inscriptions which are distinctly legible.

Before proceeding to notice the altars in detail, I may be permitted to make some observations upon the camp in the vicinity in which they have been found. When the Romans grasped the throat of England-the isthmus between the Tyne and the Solway-they did it with a tenacity all their own. They not only drew the wall from sea to sea, but they planted garrisons to the north and the south of it, to stem, in either direction the first torrent of attack. In addition to this, they seem to have given considerable attention to the fortification of the Cumbrian coast, south of the wall. Camden, who visited this neighbourhood in 1599, draws attention strongly to this fact. Speaking of St. Bees Head, he says (I quote from the contemporary translation of Philemon Holland), "From hence the shore draweth itself back by little and little, "and, as it appeareth by the heaps of rubbish, it hath been "fortified all along by the Romanes, wheresoever there was "easie landing. For it was the outmost bound of the Roman empire, and the Scots lay sorest upon this coast and infested

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"it most when, as it were, with continual surges of warre they "flowed and flocked hither by heapes out of Ireland; and "certaine it is that Moresby, a little village where is a road "for ships, was one of these fortifications." Again, speaking of Workington-" a place famous for taking of salmons" he says, "From hence some think there was a wall made to de"fend the shore in convenient places for four miles or there"about by Stilico, the potent commander in the Roman state, "what time as the Scots annoyed these coasts out of Ireland. "For thus speaketh Britaine of herself in Claudian; ‘Me "quoque vicinis pereuntem gentibus, Munivit Stilico, totam "cúm Scotus Hibernem movit, et infesto spumavit remige "Thetis.' There are also," he goes on to say “continued “ruins and broken walls to bee seene as farre as to Elne Month "(the present Maryport). Seated upon the height of a hill, "the camp hath a goodly prospect farre into the Irish sea, but now corne growes where the towne stood, nevertheless many "expresse footings thereof are evidently to be seene, the ancient "stand open, and many altars, stones with inscriptions and "statues, are here gotten out of the ground, which J. Sinous, "a very honest man, in whose grounds they are digged up, keepeth charily, and hath placed orderly about his house." I have no doubt that Camden has correctly described the manner in which the coast was fortified by the Romans, but I am quite sure that he and his authority, Claudian, are wrong ascribing the work to Stilico. I have little hesitation in saying that the altars which we are now to examine, were buried in the spot where they have recently been found, two centuries before Stilico appeared upon the stage of the world's history. As it is of importance to fix the time when the Romans seized the magnificent site, now occupied by the camp of Mary port, we may as well at once address ourselves to this subject. two of the altars recently discovered, and on another with which we have been long familiar, the name of Marcus Mænius Agrippa, the tribune, occurs. Now, from an inscription which has been found near the modern city of Camerino, in central Italy, we learn that M. Mænius Agrippa was a personal friend of the Emperor Hadrian, and that amongst the other offices which he held, was that of prefect (or as we would call it, admiral) of the British fleet. This enables us to fix the date of these altars. Hadrian was in Britain in the year 120, and it is not improbable that he may have brought his friend Agrippa along with him. Further, as there can be little

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doubt that the Romans established a camp at Maryport, because it commands the Solway Firth, and all the waters in its vicinity, we see why the admiral of the British Fleet was appointed to this station. But we have other evidence than this, of the comparatively early occupation of the camp of Maryport by the Romans. One or two altars, discovered some time ago, and which are now in the portico of the mansion at Netherhall, we find a prefect, named Acilianus, making on one of them a dedication to Jupiter. The date when Acilianus flourished, is rendered clear by another of the treasures preserved in the portico, a much-broken slab, which mentions the erection of some building by this prefect and "for the safety of Antoninus Pius." Antoninus Pius was the immediate successor to Hadrian, and he assumed the purple, A.D. 138. The Romans must therefore have been here in the time of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius. The newly-discovered altars, excepting that they supply us with the name of Mænius Agrippa, do not furnish us with a date. Still we are not altogether at a loss upon this subject.

The character of an

inscription, and the form of the letters employed, often enables us to judge approximately of its age. In the time of Hadrian the inscriptions were brief and simple, the letters well formed, and there was an entire absence of the practice, which was afterwards introduced, of uniting two or three letters together, after the manner of our dipthongs. Judging from imitations of this character, I would venture to suggest the latest of these newly-found altars belongs to the reign of Antoninus Pius. I am glad to find this opinion corroborated by a gentleman well entitled to speak upon the subject. Mr. John Buchanan, of Glasgow, who is familiar with the inscriptions found upon the Roman Wall in Scotland, all of which belong to the reign of Antoninus Pius, writes to me thus: "These altars, as well "as the cut of the letters, closely resemble those found along "the Antonine Wall, and I agree with you in conjecturing that "their era is about the reign of Antoninus Pius." I think, moreover, not only that these altars were carved at the early period of which I speak, but that they were buried in the spot where they have been found long before the abandonment of Britain by the Romans. I found this opinion not only upon the clearness and sharpness of their sculpture but upon another circumstance. After the Romans had been long in the country, and had formed matrimonial and other connections with the friendly natives, their own mythology became blended

with the superstitions of the people with whom they associated. The native gods were associated with those of Greece and Rome. Now, amongst the recently-discovered altars we find no trace of a British divinity. Jupiter is the chief object of worship, twelve are dedicated to him; the others are addressed to the Emperor, to Victory, to Mars, and to Vulcan. Had the altars been buried in the third or fourth centuries I think we should have had some traces of the Cumbrian gods Cocidius and Belatucader, which we do not; and I think, also, that we should have had some indications of the conflict of opinion which we know was then taking place, in the discovery of some altar dedicated Dibus Veteribus · to the old gods; and probably, also, some dedicated to the Persian god, Mithras, the worship of whom at that time was exceedingly prevalent. Before proceeding to form a conjecture (absolute certainty, I fear, is unattainable,) as to the causes which led to the interment of the altars before us, it is necessary that we should know the circumstances attending their discovery. The spot on which the altars have been found lies at the distance of about 350 yards from the Roman camp, which overlooks the modern town of Maryport, in a northerly direction. The altars have been clustered together in a space somewhat circular in its character, and of about sixty feet in diameter. The discovery occurred in this manner : -Our esteemed chairman of to-day, J. Pocklington Senhouse, Esq., of Netherhall, having taken into his own hands a portion of ground hitherto cultivated by a tenant, had given orders for having it brought into good condition. As a first step in this process, the plough was driven to a greater depth than had previously been done. Here and there the share struck against large stones, which were marked for removal. On the 13th of April a stone was dislodged, and, on its being removed, a carved block was seen lying beneath it. This proved to be an altar. The attention of Mr. Humphrey Senhouse was called to the circumstance, and he instantly and energetically adopted those measures which have resulted in the discovery of the largest find of altars on record. It seems that a series of pits had been formed in the circular space of the ground to which I referred. These pits were from four to six feet deep, and usually they penetrated the subsoil (which here is a stiff clay), to some extent. The bottom of several of these pits, were paved with "cobble" stones. Into these pits the altars had been put. one instance was the face of the altar found lying

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uppermost. In several cases the inscriptions were lying sideways, in some downwards. Two of the pits contained three altars each; four other pits contained two each; others only one. Besides the holes in which altars were found, others were examined, in which no perfect altar was discovered, but only broken pieces of altars, and a mass of loose stones. The appearances presented by these barren pits, led the excavators to suppose that they too had originally been occupied by altars, but that at some period anterior to the present they had been noticed and removed. The altars have been placed in their beds with care. When more than one is placed in a pit, it has been covered over with loose stones and earth before the next was put in, and a second or third was covered in a similar manner. Marks of haste are, however, evident. In one pit, the first altar was lying at the bottom with its face downwards, but two others were lying diagonally across it as if hurriedly thrown in. In some instances portions of the capitals have been broken off the altars, apparently by the force with which they have been projected into their places-the displaced fragments lying beside them.

The question now arises, how came these altars to be here? The first thought which suggests itself to most minds, isHas this been the site of a temple, and are these the altars which were placed within it? A number of circumstances obliges us to abandon this theory. No traces of foundations have been found upon the spot. Roman building stones have been thrown into the pits, but they have probably been brought from the neigbouring suburban buildings, which extended to the north of the station. Had there been a substantial building on this spot, traces of mortar would have been found, but there were none. Had this been a temple, the altars would have been found upon the surface, though covered with a mass of superincumbent ruin instead of being buried in the way that has been described. And lastly, no one temple would have contained so many as twelve altars to one god: twelve of the altars which we have before us, being dedicated to Jupiter. From this circumstance, it seems pretty plain that we have here the gatherings of several temples. These altars have been brought from the camp or temples in its immediate vicinity. Have these altars been placed here by friends or by foes? No one has paid much attention to Roman antiquities who has not earnestly desired to trace, in existing remains, some evidence of the transference from heathenism to Christianity,