INSCRIPTIOJTES BRITANNIA LATINS. 151 



DEO SANCTO 

 SILVANO VE 

 NATOEES 

 B ANNIES- S 



Hiibner expands Bx\T>rNlES* Bannieses, and remarks :— " CeUrum 

 Bruce, recte observavit venatores a ludis circensihus vel arenas fidsse, 

 ut collegium vewitorum Deensium qui ministerlo arenario funguni 

 apud Ilenzenum, n. 7209." 



In the Canadian Journnl, vol. xii., p. 112, are tlie following 

 obsorvations on tlie same inscription : — 



" I suspect that the Avord intended was Banneses for Bannenses^ 

 and that the Venatores were not mere sportsmen, but that they 

 belonged to the class of men that contended with wild beasts in 

 amphitheatres, such as we know were in various parts of Roman 

 Britain, e. gr. at Ohesters, at Housesteads, at Caerleon, &c. Thus we 

 have in Henzen's n. 7209 : — Coll. Venator' Deensitcni qui ministerio 

 arenario fangunt, where Deensium is the adjective formed from Dea, 

 for the name of the place was Dea Augusta." Nor has Dr. Bruce in 

 any of his publications, so far as we are awai-e, made this observation. 



In n. 964 we have a copy of an inscription, in which the words in 

 the fifth and sixth lines are given as 



SVB CVRA MO 

 DI IVLI LEGAVG- 



Hiibner remarks — ut dedi fere etian Bruce, qui recte coinparavit 

 Modium Jidluni legatmn Augusti incerti tituli Amboglannensis, n. 838. 



In the Canadian Journal, vol. x., p. 317, 1865, this same inscrip- 

 tion is discussed, and the following observations are offered : — 



" I am not satisfied as to the name of the Legate. The M is sepa, 

 rated in the copy [in ilonumenta Historica Britannica] by an interval 

 from CTKA, so that we may not read CTRAM, and this is, besides, 

 unusual. Nor is it probable that it stands for Marci. It has 

 occurred to me that, perhaps, there was an O after it, and that 

 IVNII was a misreading for lYLII. We shall thus get MOD. 

 lYLII, i.e., Modii Julii, the same Legate named on a stone, without 

 date, found at Birdoswald." To this is subjoined the note :— " In 

 Brit. Rom. Inscrip., p. 30, I have offered a different conjecture." 

 The conjecture to which reference is made, was that " the injured 



* Hiibner was the first that discovered I (i.e., Bannieaes not Banneses) on the 

 stone. 



