A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE 



are the scattered coins, potsherds, fibulas, and other objects, found sporadi- 

 cally, and often due to chance circumstances. These we shall treat in an 

 alphabetical index with bibliographical notes attached. But before com- 

 mencing this index, it seems desirable to notice two inscribed stones 

 which demand a rather longer notice than the index conveniently allows. 



1. In the latter part of the seventeenth century an inscribed altar 

 was dug up somewhere ' in the grounds belonging to Haddon House ' 

 and, indeed, according to a local belief, on the west bank of the 

 Derwent near the present high road. It was taken to Haddon and has 

 been there ever since. It is a plain block of local stone, 46 inches tall 

 by 19 inches wide, bearing eight lines of three-inch letters (fig. 45 on 

 plate). The reading, though faint, seems fairly certain. 1 



Deo Marti Eradacae Q. Sittius Caedlia\nii\s praef(ectus) coh(ortis) I 

 Aqultano(rmn) vo(fum) s(ohif). 



' To the god Mars Braciaca, erected by Q. Sittius Caecilianus, 

 praefect of the First Cohort of Aquitani.' 



Mars Braciaca is presumably a British deity, known to the natives 

 as Braciaca and identified by the Romans with Mars. Whether his 

 native name be derived from some place-name (as Horsley thought) or 

 from some other source, as for instance the Celtic word for malt and beer, 

 cannot easily be decided. The First Cohort of Aquitani was stationed 

 at Brough (p. 207). From Brough there is an easy road to Haddon along 

 the Derwent valley, and thus it was, perhaps, that a commander of the 

 Brough garrison came over and erected this altar. But we must refrain 

 from speculating on his reason for erecting it. Possibly enough there 

 existed near Haddon a local shrine of Braciaca, but of this we have no 

 other evidence. 



2. The second inscription was found about 1792, a little west of 

 Wirksworth. Workmen preparing for plantation a large barrow called 

 Abbot's Low, on rising ground near Hopton, discovered in it a sepulchre 

 consisting of an urn of coarse baked earth, full of burnt bones, and 

 covered by a piece of soft yellowish freestone measuring 20 by 30 inches. 

 On this stone, worn lettering was detected. The stone has since been 

 lost, but the lettering is said to have been z : 



/ / / / / 



CELL 



PRAE C'HI 

 LV BRIT 



The interpretation of this fragment is obviously uncertain. We seem 

 to have a prae(fect) of some coh(ort), but it is difficult to say what the 

 cohort was. Hiibner, reading iv for LV, suggested the Cohors iv Brittonum. 



1 First published in Gibson's Camden (ed. 1695), p. 497, some time, apparently, after its dis- 

 covery ; later by Horsley, p. 318; Pegge, Coins of Cunobelm (London 1766), p. 17; Pilkington, i. 420 ; 

 Lysons, p. ccv, and others ; Htlbner, Corp. Insc. Lot. vii. 176. I have myself examined it, and have to 

 thank Mr. Henry Rye for help in doing so. In line 4 the first letter is a short-tailed Q ; of the third 

 and fourth letters only the top of an I and the top of a T survive, but Sittius (conjectured first by 

 Hiibner) seems reasonable. 



2 Rooke, Archeeokgia, xii. (1796), p. 3 : hence all other writers, and my fig. 42. 



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