285 



Hadrian. It records distinctly the date of its execution ; for 

 the twelfth time of Trajan's receiving the Tribunitian power, 

 and the sixth time of his being saluted Imperator synchronize 

 with the years 108, 109, of the Christian sera.^ In this inscrip- 

 tion then, so unexpectedly brought to light, we have a memorial, 

 the only one I beheve yet discovered, of a period in Eoman- 

 British history concerning which no memorial was supposed to 

 exist. 



But curious and interesting as it is, it must be confessed, with 

 regret, that * we can borrow no light or assistance ' from it in 

 relation to the general state of Roman Britain during the period 

 to which it belongs. It relates one transaction only, limited to 

 one Roman station ; and the information it aflFords, even with 

 respect to that, is imperfect. All that we directly learn from it 

 is that in the year 109 the IXth Legion had executed some 

 work by order of the Emperor Trajan. Of the nature of that 

 work, or of the place where it had been executed, it tells us 

 nothing:. From the character of the tablet we infer that the 

 work must have been of some magnitude and importance : and 

 presuming that it was executed at the station, on the site of 

 which it was found, we conclude that the place was Eburacum. 

 If so, it establishes as a fact what was previously only a conjec- 

 ture,^ that in the reign of Trajan the IXth Legion was at 

 Eburacum, where probably it had been left by Agricola, in the 

 year 85, on his way from Caledonia to Rome.'' 



It appears from this tablet that although the attention of 

 the Emperor Trajan was chiefly occupied in extending or secur- 

 ing the Roman power in the East, and he never visited Britain, 



> See Eckhel Doctr. Num., P. II., Vol. VI., p. 421. Trajan entered on his 

 Xllth Tribunitiate in the autumn of A.D. 108. lb. p. 462. 



« Horslcy, B. R., p. 80. 



' The historian of York says, without citing his authority, that when the 

 Emperor Hadrian came into Britain ho met with some old soldiers of Agricola at 

 York, who dissuaded him from his designed attempt to conquer Caledonia. See 

 Drake's Eboracum, p. 8. These were, no doubt, veterans of the IXth Legion ; 

 who, after an interval of 35 or 36 years, still retained a lively recollection of what 

 had passed at the Grampian Mountains, and especially at Dealgin Boss. See Ebur- 

 acum, pp. 34, 35. 



