112 NOTES ON LATIN INSCRIPTIONS 



Dr. Bruce expands and translates it as in the second edition : 



"Deo Sancto Silvano venaiores Bannae sacraverunt. To the holy God Silva- 

 nus the hunters of Banna have consecrated this altar." 



This reading does not satisfy me. There is the same objection on 

 the ground of Latinity to Dr. Bruce's Bannae in the sense " of 

 Banna," as there is to his miles Pannonire as " soldier of Pannonia/' 

 in p. 231, and civis Pannonise as " citizen of Pannonia, in p. 220. If 

 Bannae be the correct reading, the translation should be " at Banna.'* 

 But I suspect that the word intended was Banneses for Bamienses, and 

 that the Yenatores were not mere sportsmen that hunted in that place 

 or its neighbourhood, but that they belonged to the class of men that 

 contended with wild beasts in amphitheatres, such as we know were in 

 various parts of Roman Britain, e. gr., at Chesters, at Housesteads, at 

 Caerleon, kQ. Thus we have in Henzen's n. 7209 : Coll. Venator. Been- 

 slum qui ministerio arenario fungunt, where Deensmm is the adjective 

 formed from Dea, for the name of the place was Dea Augusta. 



(jT) In p. 309, we have the copy of an inscription to which I have 

 always attached much importance, since I first saw it in the second 



edition : 



"DIFFVSI 

 PROVING 

 BRITANXIAAD 

 VTRYMQYEO 

 EXERCITYS 



" Diffusis provinciis [««] Britannia ad utrumqice oceanum exercitus [fecit). On 

 the extension of the provinces in Britain to either sea, the army erected tliis. 

 As the inscription shown above is incomplete, the reading of it is in part neces- 

 sarily conjectm-al; that which is here adopted was proposed by Brand."' 



It seems plain to me that this reading must be rejected, not merely 

 on account of objection to the Latinity, but also because there were no 

 provinces to be extended to the two oceans, viz., those to the east and 

 west of the island. If we compare with this inscription the titulus 

 given by Tacitus, Annals, ii. 22 — debellatis inter Rhenum Albimque 

 nationibus exerciium Tiherii Citsaris ea monumenta Marti et Jovi et 

 Augusta sacravisse — we shall, I think, be inclined to regard this stone 

 as erected by the army with a similar object as marking the completion 

 of some important enterprise. It may be reasonably inferred that the 

 word with which di^usis agrees (with, probably, the names of the deities 



