NOTES ON LATIN INSCRIPTIONS FOUND IN BRITAIN. 399 
dead to be removed such a distance as Galatia was from Britain ; and 
when these cases do occur, they are usually of members of families 
of distinction or in affluent circumstances, and with the object of 
having the remains deposited near those of relatives of the deceased 
in their native lands. Here the case seems to be of ason, whose re- 
mains, in accordance with his desire on his death-bed, were removed 
from his birth-place Galatia, being the place also of his death, to the 
grave of his father in Britain, whose presence there and whose death 
there are equally unexplained ; and indeed inexplicable, unless on the 
supposition that he had gone there with the corps in which he was 
serving, probably as a private soldier. But besides this, at the time 
of the inscription (to whatever date during the Roman occupation 
of the island it should be referred) this power of removal seems not 
to have been at the pleasure of individuals. We know that the Ro- 
mans did not allow a body, even temporarily interred, to be removed 
to any other place without the permission of the pontifices or other 
proper authorities. Of this we have an example in Gruter, p. DcvII. 
n. 1, where we find a copy of the memorial addressed by Velius Fidius 
for permission to remove the bodies of his wife and son from an 
obruendarium, or sarcophagus of clay, to a monument of marble, with 
the object—ut quando ego esse desiero, pariter cum tis ponar. (See 
p- 14 of Roman Sepulchral Inscriptions, a scholarly and very inter- 
' esting little work, by the Rev. J. Kenrick, of York, England; and 
Orelli, nn. 794, 2439.) Ido not mean to say that there is no au- 
thority for the removal of human remains, without a statement of per- 
mission, for there are examples, but I think that the absence of the 
notice in this case of both removal and permission, throws additional 
doubt on a reading previously highly improbable. It must also be 
admitted, that the improbability of the removal of the bones, which 
in those times would, perhaps, be the only remains, is less than that 
of the transportation of the body. 
But if we examine the restoration in detail, we shall, { think, find 
the degree of improbability considerably increased. 
Mr. Smith reads the fragment of the first line thus: [F]IL - SER- 
[VII]. Now the obvious objection to this reading is, that the order 
is contrary to usage: the name of the father should precede, and 
FIL: or F: follow. There can, I think, be but little doubt, that 
the name of the father was in the mutilated portion of the line before 
FIL: and that SER: stands for SER[GIA] ¢ribu, which is thus in 
