A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



found near it outside the enclosure. Lastly a milestone was dug up in 

 1785 from the ditch of the enclosure, in a field called Bridge (or Brick) 

 Close and in the immediate neighbourhood of the north gate. It is a 

 cylindrical stone of a shape usual to Roman milestones, 3 feet 4 inches 

 in height and from 10 to 15 inches in diameter. It is now in the 

 library of Trinity College, Cambridge, where I have examined it. 



Impc/es 



M- ANNI o 



FlORI ANO 



PFINVICTO 



AVG 



M- P- I- 



' In the reign of the Emperor Marcus Annius Florianus, Pius Felix Invictus Augustus : 

 one mile ' (a.d. 276). 



It marks the distance of one mile from some place from which mileage 

 was counted, and that as we shall see (pp. 177, 203) can hardly be any 

 other than Castor,' Several burial grounds are also recorded. Stukeley 

 mentions urn burials near the north gate. Artis places stone coffins 

 at the same spot and skeletons near the south-east corner, but the 

 principal cemetery was apparently to the south, near the Roman road 

 which led into the south gate. Here stone and lead coffins, urns, human 

 bones, coins of all periods in the Roman occupation and other objects 

 were ploughed up in great numbers when the turnpike road to Wansford 

 bridge was constructed in 1739.^ One stone coffin is specially recorded 

 as containing the bones of a mother and unborn babe. Another, dis- 

 covered in 1754 in digging for a foundation, contained a skeleton, three 

 glass ' lachrymatories,' a few jet pins, a seventeenth century seal which 

 must have got in by accident, some coins (one Faustina, one Gordian, 

 the rest illegible), and five thin bits of 'white wood ' (bone .?) with an 

 inscription which a correspondent of the Society of Antiquaries read 

 thus : — 



p n Ai n rj M Ai m -rrf \£i Fi fi fi n CI (^ riJ Xa q/r/J W t .^r I rj n rj a ii n n r 



The pieces apparently belong together, but they are imperfect and they 

 have been copied in the wrong order. We can only discern the formula 

 so often engraved on objects of common use, utere felix : ' use (me) and 

 prosper ' ; the rest of the inscription was seemingly in Greek. ^ 



' Note by the Rev. Mr. Tench, then rector of Chesterton, dated March 22, 1785, printed in the 

 Genl/eman's Magazitif, {iy()^) ii. 741, and in Kennet Gibson's Cflz/cr, p. 163; Gentleman's Magazine, 

 (1786) ii. 1034, (1788) i. 36, (1795) ii. 841, 916; Artis, pi. xv. (2) with wrong provenance ; Corpus 

 inscr. Latin, vii. 1 1 56. Editors have differed about the numeral of the mileage, giving usually L or LI, 

 but the actual figure is certainly I-, as I ascertained by personal inspection and by a squeeze. Hubner 

 actually read I- but put L' in his text, thinking he had erred. IVIPI- however, though it may sound 

 odd to a grammarian, is by no means without parallel and here makes good sense. 



2 Stukeley's Letters, ii. 213, 222, iii. 59; Reliquia Galeana, ii. (2) 183; Kennet Gibson's Castor, 

 81-4 ; Minutes of the Peterborough Gentlemen's Society, printed in the Journal of the British Archao- 

 logfcal Association, new ser. v. 150— i. 



3 Manning, Minutes of the Soc. of Antiquaries, vii. p. 122 ; Gibson's Castor, p. 84; Gough's Add. to 

 Camden, ii. 257 (inaccurate); Corpus inscr. Latin, vii. 1264; Stukeley's Letters, ii. 218 (reading 

 AXbxrct). 



170 



