FOUND IN BRITAIN. 121 



Augusta- Now, there is no evidence that this title was borne by any 

 ala known to have been in Britain, whilst there, except one, called only 

 ala Augusta, in inscriptions found chiefly at Old Carlisle. Horsley 

 identifies, on insufficient grounds, this ala with the * ala I Ilerculea. I 

 am inclined to identify it, on the authority of (2), with the ala Petriana 

 and to regard the use of Augusta alone as manifesting the proud assump. 

 tion that it was unnecessary to use any other designation to identify the 

 corps, and distinguish it from other alse serving in Britain. It (the title 

 Augusta^ does not appear in the inscription given in Orelli, n. 516, where 

 the regiment is called clce Petriance miUiar. C . R. his torquatof.. Hence 

 we must choose between two hypotheses, either that Aug. was omitted 

 in this inscription, or lis in (2). Of these I think the latter much the 

 more probable, and, identifying the ala Petriana with the ala Augusta, 

 suspect that it got the title Augusta for services under JJlpius Marcellus. 

 In the two earliest memorials of the ala Augusta scil. of the years 188 

 and 191, the words ob virtutem ajypellata added to Augusta seem to 

 indicate that the title was then recent. Similarly on an altar of 242 

 we find oh virtutem apioellata following Gordiana when this title of 

 the ala had been recently obtained. This identification of the ala 

 Petriana and ala Augusta, and the knowledge that the majority of the 

 memorials of both have been found at Old Carlisle, Carlisle, and Old 

 Penrith, suggest the conjecture that we must place Petriana — as 

 we cannot find a probable site for it within a reasonable distance from 

 Amboglanna — in one of these places or in their neighbourhood. Long 

 ago, Camden, on different grounds, regarded Old Penrith as Petriana. 

 Old Carlisle seems to have stronger claims, and there are those, per- 

 haps, who, notwithstanding the identification by many of Carlisle with 

 Luguvalliun, would assert the right of that city to the site, especially 



* There is great uncertainty about this Ala I Herculea, or Ilerculia as it is 

 otherwise written. In that part of tlie Notitia which relates to Britain, it is said 

 to have been at Olenacum, but in other parts of tlie same work it is said to have 

 been at three different places, in Africa and Asia. 



It is not easy to reconcile these statements. It seems to me very improbable 

 that there were several alee primce ITereulece in the sense "first of the Hercu- 

 leans." I suspect that after ala prima had been origiaally the name of the people, 

 and that when it got the title from Maximian, Ilerculea was put in place of that 

 name. I should be disposed, therefore, to identify the ala prima Herculea of 

 Britain with one of the aloe primce that served in that island, e. gr., Ala I Thracum, 

 Ala I Pannoniorum, Ala I Tungrorum. 



