INSCRIBED RoMAN STONES OF DUMFRIESSHIRE. 119 
Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq.” (Wilson, Prehist., Ann. of Scot., 1st ed., 
1851); “deposited in the Museum of the University of Edin- 
burgh” (Stuart, Ca/. Rom., 2nd ed., 1852); deposited by the 
Senatus of the University in the National Museum, Edinburgh, 
1866. 
An altar, 4} ft. high and 1 ft. 6 in. broad. The symbol 00 
at the commencement of the last line is regarded as a graphic 
alteration of the Greek letter Chi used to represent a thousand by 
the Chalcidian colonists of Southern Italy. There are heavy 
mouldings on the base and pedestals of this altar. The top is not 
hollowed out as in most of the other Birrens altars ; but its sides, 
cylindrical in form, are connected by a notched 
FORTVNAE or undulating broad border, the enclosed space 
cOH.T. being occupied by a flat rectangular focus. It is 
NERVANA . Ae : 
AHERTARNOR dedicated to Fortune. Pennant has not copied 
Sa 6 hs the inscription with much care, and an expansion 
of it in two lines is what he gives. 
Expand thus: Fortunae Coh(ors) I. Nervana Germanor(um)} 
milliaria eg(uitata) |dedicavit|; and translate: ‘‘ To Fortune, the 
First Cohort of Germany, (called) the Nervana, a thousand strong 
including its complement of cavalry, (dedicated this).” 
The epithet MIL (zara) was applied to those cohorts that 
numbered about 1000 men. They were called EQ(uc/ata) when 
they contained a certain number of horse, the proportion generally 
being 760 foot soldiers formed into 10 centuries and 240 horse in 
10 ¢urmae. Bodies of troops of this mixed character, the composi- 
tion of which the Romans are said to have borrowed from the 
Germans, ‘‘ were particularly well adapted for the garrisoning of a 
station situated in an open country, and liable to frequent inroads 
of the enemy.” * 
A difference of opinion exists as to the meaning of the epithet 
NVervana. Some are of opinion that it has reference to the 
emperor Nerva as being the first to organise the cohort. Others 
think that it was so named because it had been levied among the 
Nervii, one of the bravest tribes of Belgic Gaul. 
11. “* Found near the Roman encampment on Burnswark 
Hill, Dumfriesshire, parish of Hoddam or Middlebie” (Archeologia 
*Thomas Hodgson, Archeologia Ailiana (1st series), vol. ii. p. 83. 
