InscRIBED RomMAN STONES oF DUMFRIESSHIRE. 109 
abbreviations and ligatures are somewhat confusing. But without 
a knowledge of the system generally followed in making them, the 
text of the inscriptions cannot be properly understood. 
Hach word should be separated from the next by a point or 
dot, though this was not seldom omitted. Sometimes the letters 
are all close together on the stones. Instead of the round dot, a 
small triangle is often used. After the first century the ivy leaf 
is not uncommon. Various other forms of the point are found, 
but all of them are placed in the middle of the line, and not, as with 
us, at the foot. 
Certain letters were also employed as numerals, though some 
of them had at first nothing to do with the particular characters 
the form of which they came to assume. To distinguish numerals 
from letters, a stroke was drawn through the former in republican 
times ; afterwards it was put over them. 
The Roman inscribed stones hitherto found in Dumfriesshire 
may be classified thus :—Altars or votive slabs, dedicated to divini- 
ties; stones bearing honorary or commemorative inscriptions, 
including those that are sometimes called legionary; sepulchral 
monuments. Briefly stated, the conventional forms employed by 
the Romans for each of these classes of inscriptions are as 
follows :— 
1. ALTARS.—-First comes the name of the divinity in the 
dative, dependent on the word sacrum, or some contraction of it, 
expressed or understood. This is followed by the name of the 
dedicator in the nominative, often with particulars added regarding 
his family, country, or profession, or the circumstances under which 
the altar was set up. Lastly, we may have a verb or phrase ex- 
pressing the idea of the altar being a gift, or the fulfilment of a - 
vow, to which, when sacrum is wanting at the commencement, 
the name of the divinity may, at the option of the reader, be 
attached grammatically. 
2. STONES, HONORARY OR COMMEMORATIVE.—These begin 
with the name and titles of the person in whose honour or in whose 
time the stone was raised, whether a statue or a historical tablet. 
If the inscription is honorary, these are in the dative, depending 
on a verb that comes, or is supposed to come, after; but if time is 
denoted they must be regarded as in the ablative. Owing to 
contractions and the frequent identity in form of these two cases, 
