53 



Romans gives an especial value to those which we still possess, 

 or whose inscriptions have been preserved to us by credible 

 authority. The whole southern district of the island has been 

 very barren of inscribed monuments ; and those of the northern 

 provinces, though much more abundant, are chiefly religious 

 and military. It is therefore fortunate that such imexception- 

 able authorities as Camden, Burton, Gale, and Horsley ' have 

 preserved the remarkable inscription which I propose to illus- 

 trate, formerly existing here, though the monument itself has 

 shared the fate of so many others, and having been first 

 degraded to a horse-trough, has finally disappeared. 



The inscription in its most correct form and with its abbrevia- 

 tions filled up according to unquestionable analogies, runs thus : 

 Marcus Verecundus Diogenes, Sevir Colonije Eboracensis, 

 ibeidemque mortuus, cives blturix cubus, h^c sibi vitus 

 FECIT. " M. Verecundus Diogenes, Sevir of the Colony of York, 

 and who died at that place, a citizen of the Bituriges Cubi, made 

 these things for himself during his life time." He had caused 

 the Sarcophagus and Operculum to be executed during his life, 

 and his heir did not forget to inscribe his designation and 

 birth place, after his death. 



I cannot conceive of any plausible objection against the 

 genuineness of this inscription. It has been given to us by 

 men of the highest reputation, to whom no suspicion has 

 attached of those mischievous forgeries by which some anti- 

 quaries have disgraced themselves. The information which it 

 conveys respecting Eboracum, as being a colony and having a 

 body of Seviri, though not supported by other evidence, is not 

 contradicted by it, and is in itself probable. The mis-spelling 

 of cives for civis is far more likely to have been the error of a 

 lapidary than of the forger of an inscription. Orelli has re- 

 marked a circumstance connected with this word civis, which 

 strongly confirms the genuineness of our monument ; it rarely 

 occurs except when citizens of the Gallic States are spoken of. ^ 



1 See Eburacum, by the Rev. C. Wellbeloved, p. 102. 



• Orelli Inscr. 190, 191, 192, 276. "Vides hunc usum civitatem in lapidibns 

 designandi in Galliis potisslmum obtinoisse." 



