Inscribed Romax Stones of Dumfriesshire. 127 



Au altar of very chaste desigu, 3 ft. high, 1 ft. 8i in. broad 

 at the base, and 1 ft. across the middle. At the top on each side 

 are volutes that have six lance-shaped thunderbolts laid closely on 

 them in two sets of three each. Between them is the usual 

 bason-shaped depression. The altar bears no inscription. It was 

 found lying- on the steps leading down to a paved rectangular de- 

 pression within the prsetorian buildings. 



In the list of Birrens antiquities recorded by Pennant (Tour 

 in Scotland, vol. iii., Appendix, p. -407), as " found at the station 

 at Burrens," are four inscribed stones that have not been included 

 in the present list. All of them belong for certain to the north 

 of England. As Pennant's third volume was not published till 

 some years after his visit to the station, it is not difficult to under- 

 stand how his note-book may have so far misled him. (See Proc. 

 Soc. of Antiq. of Scot., vol. xxxi., p. 1,50.) 



Such is an outline of the records furnished by archaeology for 

 a history of the Birrens garrison. They are necessarily fragment- 

 ary, but they present us with some facts of importance. Unfor- 

 tunately, from no other quarter can the slightest help be got in any 

 attempt we may make to connect them ; unless, indeed, they can 

 be grouped round the Blatum Biilgium of the Antoniue Itineraiy. 

 But this, though highly probable, is not absolutely certain. The 

 work so called is generally regarded as a compilation drawn up in 

 the reign, and by order, of one or other of the emperors that bore 

 the name of Antoninus. Some indeed give it an earlier date, and 

 trace it to a survey of the empire undertaken in the consulship of 

 Julius Caesar and M. Antonius (B.C. 44), by command of the for- 

 mer. If this is so, it could not have included at first the Britannic 

 Iters, which must in that case be an addition made in the course of 

 some of the revisions it bears internal evidence of having under- 

 gone at various times, down at least to the reign of Diocletian 

 (A.D. 285-305), so as to bring it up to date. Whatever its history 

 may be, the Itinerary is a document of great value, inasmuch as it 

 indicates the course of the principal roads and cross roads through- 

 out the whole empire by the names of places and stations situated on 

 them, all the distances between towns being given in Roman miles. 

 Of fifteen Britannic Iters the Second, which is the longest, runs 

 in very zigzag fashion from Rutupiae (now Eichborough, in Kent) 



