FOUND IN BRITAIN. 99 



Before OS is the fragment of a letter, which may have been C. If 

 this be the fact, COS will stand for ConsuUbus, whence we may assume 

 that the names of the consuls were wholly or partly in the preceding 

 line. From this it may be inferred that the date of the inscription is 

 A.P. 322, in which Probianus and Julianus were consuls. The let- 

 ters AVG might suggest that the name of the Emperor was also given, 

 but they more probably denote the month of August, and were pre- 

 ceded by some letters specifying the day, in which something was 

 completed or dedicated by the Cohort named in the first line on the 

 missing part of the slab.* 



68. It has been inferred, from inscriptions on some altars found in 

 the north of England, that a god, called Vetires, or Vitires, was wor- 

 shipped in that locality. See Horsley, Brit. Rom., Nor. Ixvii., Durh. 

 vi.,xix. Dr. Bruce, Roman Wall, p. 399, 2nd ed., offers the following 

 remarks on an altar, having the letters — VITIRBVS. : 



*' Vitres, or Viteres, or Veteres, is a god whose name is confined to the north of 

 Britain. Hodgson remarks that Vithris was a name of Odin, as we find in the 

 death-song of Lodbroc : — ' I will approach the halls of Vithris with the faltering 

 voice of fear.' If Veteres and the Scandinavian Odin be identical, we are thus 

 furnished with evidence of the early settlement of the Teutonic tribes in England. 

 The occurrence of the name of this god in a plural form, has suggested the idea that 

 Viteres is not the proper name of a god, but that diis veteribus — the ancient gods 

 —is the inscription intended. Most probably, however, Viteres was the name of a 

 local deity," 



The following are the principal forms in which the name appears on 

 those altars: — DEO VITRI SANCTO, DEO SANC VETERI, 

 DEO VETRI SANCT, DEO VITIRI, DEO VITIRINE, DEO 

 VITERINE, DEO MOGONTI VITIRES. But, the word is also 

 found in the plural, as fDIBVS VETERIBVS, DEABVS VITBVS, 



* In proposing this explanation I have assumed that the stone is not of the 

 class, called Centurial, but I am not satisfied that it is not. 



f Horsley, Northumberland, Ixix., gives an inscription, which he reads Dirua 

 Vitiribus Deeciws votum solvit libens merito, regarding the first three words as 

 the name of the dedicator. Mr. Wright, Celt, Roman, and Saxon, p, 296, 2nd ed,, 

 renders this inscription thus : 



DIRVS To the rustic gods 



VITIRBVS Vitires, 



DEOCIVS Deccius 



V"S*L-M performs a vow willingly and dutifully. 



This reading, DIS RVSTICIS, may be regarded as an improvement on Horsley'a 

 but I have no doubt that both are incorrect. Dr. Bruce judiciously infers, from 

 another altar. " which has the letter B of DIBVS quite plain," that " Horsley should 

 have read DIBVS, not DIRVS." Dibus is sometimes used in epigraphy for Liis. 



