4 ANCIENT CARVED STONE, 



second impositum lunce. On this tliat learned numismatist remarks :— 

 " Placuit istud Augustorum par specie Solis et Lunce proponere, 

 quoniam hoec astra ceterna credita, et ceternitas ipsis etiam Augustis 

 aut adficta, aut vota" In confirmation of this view, lie cites two in- 

 scriptions, given by Gruter, p. xxxii. 10, and p. xlii. 2: — "Soli- 

 ceterno- Lunce- pro- Aeternitate- imperii- et- salute. Imp- Ca * * 

 Sejithnii- Severi-" &c., and "Lunce- Aeter. Sacrum, pro- salute. Imp- 

 Caes- L- Septimi- Sev-" &c. See also coins of Decius and Etruscilla, and 

 Rasche's Lexicon, under Sol and Luna. 



The sun and *moon, then, on this stone, may be symbols of the Em- 

 peror and Empress of the period, and who they were may be generally 

 inferred from the cross (if it be one) that is between the disk and 

 the ^crescent, for on this supposition we should look, in the first in- 

 stance, for these imperial personages in or after the time of Constan- 

 tine. If we select the time of Constantine, the objects may stand 

 for the Emperor himself and the Empress Fausta {up to 327 A.D., 

 when she is said to have been killed), or, rather, the mother-Empress 

 Helena, celebrated for her attachment to the Christian religion, and 

 the reputed discoverer of the true cross. If we prefer the period 

 after Constantine, these objects may symbolize any Christian sole 

 Emperor and Empress down to the final withdrawal of the Roman 

 troops from Britain, and thus may represent Theodosius the Great 

 and Galla in 392 A.D., or, perhaps, Theodosius II. and Eudocia, in 

 423 or 424 A.D. If the object be not a cross, then I suspect that it 



* The simplest form forrep esentiag these objects on stone, so as to dist'nguish 

 them, would be, as here, by a disk and a crescent. 



s Mr. Grover, in an article on " Pre-Augustine Christianity in Britain," in the 

 Journal of the Archseol. Association, xxiii , p. 229, remarks that " the crescent 

 was a conspicuous characteristic of the faith, as shewn in the catacombs (see 

 Didron, p. 159)" ; and also with special reference to this stone — "It represents, 

 amongst other devices, the cross and the ci'escent in conjunction, as in the tomb 

 of the mart3'r Lannus of the catacombs. There is no doubt but these combined- 

 symbols refer to Christianity. And what is more remarkable is that the stone 

 was found at Chesterholm (Vindolana), which was garrisoned by the fourth co- 

 hort of Gauls — Gaol, as we know, being completely Christianized at a very early 

 period. The other devices^ the sun, the cock, the triangle, (fee, would lead to 

 the assumption that the stone was the work of one of the Gnostic Christians." 

 In the copies that I have seen of the epitaph of Lannus, it is not quite clear that 

 the object (placed over XPI., the contraction of CHRISTI) is a crescent; and 

 there are examples of the use of this figure on Pagan altars, e. gr., in n. 553 of 

 the Lapidarinm Septenlrionale an altar is figured that bears the crescent between, 

 two gamma-shaped crosses. The cross, moreover, which is cut above that in- 

 scription, is not of the same form as that on the Vindolana stone, as it more 

 closely resembles that which is called the Greek crogs. 



