326 



The detailed account of the Claudian expedition has been lost, 

 with the second half decade of Tacitus' History ; the short 

 characteristic notices on the corresponding events in "Agricola' 

 (chapter 14 and following) and in the History, (3, 44 and 

 following) cannot, of course, replace it ; but with the help of 

 the accounts given in the Annals on the events which took 

 place somewhat later, at the time of the second legate of the 

 Province, nine years after the conquest (1), we are able to draw 

 the following conclusions from the monuments which are still 

 preserved. Immediately after the landing, after the places on 

 the coast had been occupied and alliances concluded with some 

 of the native princes, A. Plautius, the first legate of the 

 Province (A.D. 43 44), seems to have concentrated his army in 

 Venta Belgarum (Winchester) about the centre of the southern 

 part of the peninsula. Only one stone with an inscription has 

 been found, up till now, in this spot (C.I.L. vii, 5); it belongs, 

 probably, to the end of the first, or, the latest, to the beginning 

 of the second century. 



The Inscription is : — 



MATEIB(US) ITA(LI)S GEKMANIS GAL(LIS) BRIT(ANNIS) 



[A]NTONIUS [LUJCRETIANUS [B(ENE)]r(ICIAii,IUS) 

 CO(N)S(ULAEIS) REST(ITUIT) (2) 



This is a consecration offered in days of old to the Italian, 

 Germanic, Gallic, and Britannic Mothers, the sacred protectresses 

 of those nationalities which furnished recruits to the four legions 

 of the army of occupation, to the II Augustan, the XIV Gemina, 

 the IX Hispana, and the XX Valeria Victrix, and to their 

 native allies. This inscription was restored by a beneficiary of 

 the consular legate of the Province, who may have had his 

 office there in the 2nd century. The Roman Eoads which are 

 still in existence, and the position of the Eoman settlements, 



(1) Vide Rheinisclie Museum fur Philologie, 1857, p. 47. 



(2) An excellent woodcut which I have before me, and which I owe to the 

 kindness of Mr. A. S. MURRAY (the inscription is in the British Museum), fairly 

 completes the interpretation I put on it previously : at the beginning of line 6 

 two letters have been effaced, and we must, therefore, read instead of the name 

 Cretianus, which I ought to have rejected from the first, Luceetianus. 



