358 NOTES ON LATIN INSCRIPTIONS FOUND IN BRITAIN. 



duty of executioners. Then he became successively a tabuJarius and 

 cubicularius, from whicli he was raised to the oflB.ce of procurator. 

 Subsequently to his serving in England, he accompanied Caracalla in 

 his Parthian expedition as colleague of Macrinus the prcefectus 

 prceforio, and was, I suspect, privy to the murder of the Emperor. 

 After that, he was despatched by Macrinus to Rome, ad funus 

 Caracalli ducendum as E,eimar states in his note, but in reality to get 

 rid of his pretensions as a rival aspirant to the imperial throne, for 

 Adventus did not scruple to tell the soldiers, after the death of 

 Caracalla, that the sovereignty properly devolved on him as the senior 

 of Macrinus, but that in consideration of his advanced age he would 

 give place to his junior. After his return to Rome he was in great 

 favor with Macrinus, who elevated him to the rank of Senator, and 

 to the office of 'Prcefectus Vrhis, a remarkable elevation, not only 

 with a view to his antecedents, but also because at the time he was 

 not of consular rank. Then he became consul with Macrinus, and 

 after the death of that Emperor, in June 218, finished his year as 

 colleague of Elagabalus. 



Dio Cassus speaks of him very contemptuously, and derides his want 

 of qualifications for the high positions to which he had attained, but 

 his career proves that he must have been a man of very uncommon 

 ability. 



This inscription confirms the accuracy of the historian as to his 

 having held the office of procurator and disproves the conjecture of 

 Eeimar, that he had been procurator rei privates. I have already 

 mentioned Henzen's conjecture as to P E S ; it is very inge- 

 nious, but must, I think, be rejected on the ground, that there is 

 no authority for the application of any one of the designations, 

 miliaria, pia,Jidelis, or Severiana to the first cohort of the Vangiones. 

 I interpret the letters P E S as the abbreviation of operibus per- 

 fectis, or factis,* — i.e., having executed or completed the works. 

 We have a similar form of expression in Gruter, cxc. n. 4 : OPERI- 

 BUS AMPLIATIS RESTITVIT; and also in Morcelli, vol. ii. 

 pp. 129 and 134. I am inclined to venture on the following 

 restoration : 



* It is scarcely necessary to add, that there are examples of O and P for opus, and of 

 P F andP tor 'perfecit !kx\di fecit respectively. 



