VOL. XXX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 3^7 



fall into decay, as the word conlapsa implies : and not that it was destroyed by 

 any fire, war, or other enemy than age and neglect. 



Though the word conlapsa is written here with an n, there can be no doubt 

 but the pronunciation of it was as we usually find it spelt, collapsa ; a certain 

 argument of the letter n's being silent in the middle of a word, before two 

 consonants, especially ns, and nt, when the t was pronounced like an s. To 

 omit what Quintilian says to this purpose, it is confirmed by the absence of that 

 letter in numberless inscriptions in Gruter, Reinesius, &c. and no wonder, since 

 the workmen in those days, as well as ours, usually wrote as they spoke their 

 words. 



It will be as difficult to assign a reason for repairing the camp at Longovicus, 

 as it was for its being deserted ; unless the propraetors might judge it adviseable 

 about the time of Gordian III. to fix their residence there, and consequently 

 refortify the old camp for their state and security. And that it was not reforti- 

 fied upon any sudden emergency, but for time and duration, is evident both 

 from the strong stone-works that encompassed it, and a body of forces lying 

 here, even at the expiration of the Roman empire and authority in this island, 

 which from its continuance in the same station, had got the name of the 

 Longovicarii. 



We are indebted to these two monuments, not only for the account they 

 have preserved of the Roman arms and magnificence at Longovicus, but for 

 the indisputable records of the names of two legates and propraetors of Britain, 

 which would otherwise have been buried in oblivion, viz. Cneius Lucilianus and 

 Maecilius Fuscus : for from Virius Lupus (who was proprastor and legate here 

 about the year 208, under Severus, and just before that emperor's coming into 

 this island repaired a bath burned down at Lavatrae, or Bowes, in Yorkshire) 

 we have no where extant the name of one of those officers, till we come to 

 Nonnius Philippus, whom I take to have succeeded the last of these ; the stone 

 which was found at Old Carlisle in Cumberland, and has preserved his memory, 

 setting forth that he was legate and propraetor when Atticus and Praetextatus 

 were consuls, which was A. D. 242, the very year that our Gordian went on 

 his Persian expedition, from which he never returned. And as that emperor 

 left Nonnius Philippus in that post, when he marched into the east, where he 

 was murdered about two years after, it is highly probable that he was the last 

 propraetor of his appointing, and consequently, that Maecilius Fuscus was his 

 predecessor, and the repairs began at Longovicus before the year 243. 



