224 NOTES ON LATIN INSCRIPTIONS FOUND IN BRITAIN. 



Mr. Hunter here offers a conjecture that impia may refer to ' some- 

 religious or political fermentj' and cites in illustration the words locum 

 religiosum per insolentiam erutum, found in another of the Bath in- 

 scrip tions. 



"NasTius tlie Adjutor, a Roman officer, to whose duties sufficient attention seems 

 hardly to have been paid by the writers on Eoman antiquities, may seem to have 

 been the proper officer to superintend this re-edifieation. 



" His name, I believe, is not found in any other inscription discovered in England. 

 But in Gruter, civ,, No. 9, we have — P. N'sevius, Adjutor, in an inscription found at 

 Tarracona. We find also, in Gruter ccclxxi., JSTo. 8, Adjutore Procc. Civitatis 

 Senonum Tricassinorum Meldorum <fec., which shows that the Adjutor to the Pro- 

 curators is not an officer unknown to inscriptions." 



In the same number of the Journal, we have also Dr. Bmce's obser- 

 vations : 



As far as my present knowledge goes, I am disposed to expand the inscription 

 thus : — 



Pro salute Imperatoris Ccesaris Marci Aureii AntoniniPii Felicis Invicti Augusti 

 . . . .Nasvius Augusti libertus adjutor ProCuratorum principia ruina oppressa a solo 

 restituit. 



" It may be translated in something like this form: — For the safety of the Em- 

 peror Csesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the pious, fortunate and invincible Au- 

 gustus. . . .Nsevius, the freedman of Augustus and the assistant of the Procurators 

 restored these chief military quarters, which had fallen to ruin. 



" The fisrt question that arises here is respecting the eijiperor, specially ad- 

 dressed. I find that the names and epithets used in this inscription are in others 

 applied both to Caracalla and Heliogabalus, with the exception of the word 

 invictus; and in no other instance that I can find is this applied to either of ttiese 

 emperors. I incline to Mr. Franks' opinion, that Heliogabalus is the person here 

 intended, for the following reasons: — 1. On the murder of Heliogabalus his name 

 seems to have been erased from inscriptions, or the slabs themselves thrown down. 

 This stone having been used to cover a tomb must have previously been removed 

 from its origiual position. 2. From the indistinctness of some of the letters, I take 

 it for granted that the inscription is not deeply carved ; this, together with the 

 omission of the A in Cesaris, and the occurrence of tied letters, seems to indicate 

 the later rather than the earlier period. 3. Had Caracalla been the person intend- 

 ed, one of his well known epithets, such as Parthicus, Britannicus or Germanicus, 

 would probably have occupied the place of invictus ; so far as I have noticed, 

 Heliogabalus had earned no such distinctions ; his flatterers, therefore, on hia 

 assuming the purple, would have no resource but to bestow upon him the indefinite 

 title of invictus. 



" The next thing which occurs in it is the name of the dedicator. Mr. Hunter 

 remarked that the name NAEVIVS occurred in Gruter. It is not without interest 

 to observe, that one of the examples furnished by that author (P. civ., No. 9,) con- 

 tains that name with the epithet adjutor appended. 



