ANCIENT CAEVED STONE. 7 



that, although so late iu its introduction at Rome, it may have been 

 used at an earlier period in the Provinces. Thus Martigny remarks : 



" Pent etre faut-il dire que lii croix parut plus tot dans certaines provinces ou 

 le Christianisme fut plus tot emancipe qu' a Rome, et M. De' Rossi le fait 

 remarquer pour 1' Afrique, et pour Cartilage en particulier, qui, des le quatri^me 

 si(^cle, foui'nit des marbres munis de cet auguste signe." 



This supposition seems to me very probable, especially as to Gaul 

 and Britain, but no example on stone has been found, so far as I am 

 aware, of which the date can be positively ascertained, in either of 

 these countries, nor in Italy, Germany, or Spain, before that of 407 

 A.D. If this object, then, on the Yindolana stone be a Latin cross, 

 and the sun and moon represent the Emperor and Empress, the time 

 must be referred to "423 or 424 A.D., when Theodosius IT. was 

 Augustus and Eudocia, Augusta. 



But we may interpret the sun and moon otherwise. They may be 

 the common accessories in the representations of the crucifixion, 

 believed by some to symbolize the darkness from the sixth to the 

 ninth hour. We might expect them, however, as such, on the right 

 and left hand of the cross. This belief — that the object is a cross — 

 m.ay be further supported by the triangular form of the stone, the 

 triangle being a recognized Christian emblem of the Trinity. It 

 accords, also, with the early history of Christianity in Gaul, from 

 which it appears that there were churches at Yienne and Lyons 

 before 177 A.D. when Irenseus succeeded Pothinus, and that in 

 250 A.D. seven missionaries were sent into that Pi-ovince ; conse- 

 quently a supposition that the 4th cohort of Gauls was composed, in 

 the 4th century or the beginning of the 5 th, either wholly or chiefly, 

 of those professing the Christian faith, is not unreasonable. 



"VYe may draw this article to a close, by stating the objections to 

 the opinion that the object is a cross. First, then, it is unlike the 

 examples of the Latin cross of the 4th century or the beginning of 

 the 5 th, as in these the limbs are in the form of wedges, whereas 

 in this the arms do not expand, but '^'■^taper. Nor can it be regarded, 



" This is beyond the most probable date of the Nolitia, and although some of 

 the troops mentioned in it may have remained in their tations up to the final 

 ■withdrawal from Britain, yet it does not seem safe, for any uncertain date of an 

 act of a military bodj^ named in that work as quartered in Britain, to go lower 

 than the year 410 A.D. 



12 n the example of 407 A.D, this expansion or dilatation is observable, but ia 

 a less degree than in those on coins. 



