NOTES ON LATIN INSCRIPTIONS FOUND IN BRITAIN. 41] 
(2) Ti[berius] Claudius Ceesar Aug[ustus] P{ontifex] M[aximus] 
Trib[unitia] Pot[estate] vii. Imp[erator] xvi. de Britan[nis]. 
The date is a.p.49. 
Following Mr. Way, I have regarded the object of lead, bearing 
this inscription, asa pig. Leland, Collect. Assert. Artur. v., p. 45, 
describes it as tropheum ew oblonga plumbi tabula. Similarly Camden, 
i, p. 82, (Gough's edit.) but Gough, p. 104, applies the term “ pig” 
to it. Inthe Monum. Hist. Brit. it is called lamina. The learned 
author of the Historical Ethnology of Britain, Cran. Brit., Dee. iii., 
chap. V., p. 101, speaks of it as “ often described as a pig, but really 
an oblong plate, ‘oblonga plumbi tabula,’ and part, probably, of a 
trophy.’ It is plain from the context of the passage in which Leland 
mentions it that it was not a Zamina or sheet, for just before noticing 
it he more than once mentions lamineé plumbee, but in describing it 
substitutes, for lamina, tabula, the difference being, as I understand, 
that the latter was thicker. 
Mr. Way (p. 22) speaks of these objects generally as “the masse 
plumbi, "EXacpoi porBdwor of Dion, in the medizeval times termed 
tabule.” The passage in Dion, referred to by Mr. W., is the same that 
I have cited on page 15, and there can, I think, be but little doubt 
that the éAacpol mentioned there, were what the ancient Romans 
ealled tabula. 
The idea of its being a trophy was, I conceive, suggested by the 
name being in the nominative, and by the use of the preposition de 
which seems to denote that the object was not an article of com- 
merce or of tribute, but of spoil; thus Virgil, dn. iii., 288, Aneas 
hee de Danais victoribus arma. This supposition derives support 
from the use of the same formula—de Britannis—on the coins of Clau- 
dius of the years 46 and 49, A. D., which also bear on the reverse 
a triumphal arch surmounted by an equestrian statue between two 
trophies. The first issue of these coins was most probably to com- 
memorate the completion of the triumphal arch decreed for his tri- 
umph over the Britons in A. D. 44, and the second, which bears the 
same legend as this object of lead, was in honor of his enlargement 
of the pomerium in A. D. 49. It seems no improbable supposi- 
tion, that objects of lead were prepared in Britain to grace the tri- 
umphal procession on the first occasion and some pageant on the 
second. It is possible, too, that the word trope@um may correctly 
designate one of these objects, as a trophy won from conquered ene- 
Vou. VI. 2F 
