ROMAN BROUGH :=ANAVIO. 199 



Syria, and apparently the two posts were held tolerably late 

 in a man's career, and with no very long interval between them. 

 In all probability, therefore, Julius Verus governed Britain 

 during the latest part of the reign of Pius, perhaps about 

 a.d. 155. Add that he may perhaps be mentioned on a frag- 

 mentary inscription, probably of this period, which was found 

 at Netherby, a Roman fort in Cumberland north of Hadrian's 

 Wall (Lapidarium 777 = C.I.L. vii., 767). Add also that his 

 name may be restored on a slab found at Birrens and dated 

 a.d. 158, and the sum of our knowledge of Julius Verus is 

 complete. 



The inscription is interesting in two respects. In the first 

 place it illuminates the history of the Roman fort at Brough. 

 It belongs to a class of inscriptions which may be called 

 memorial. With a reticence that is characteristic of Roman 

 epigraphy, these inscriptions do not always name the reason 

 of their erection, but it was usually the building or re-building 

 of a fort, or a structure in it, or a road or bridge ; sometimes, 

 perhaps, it was the completion of an arduous campaign or 

 journey. In the present case we may take the inscription as 

 showing that the fort at Brough was built, or repaired, or, at 

 least, occupied in some emphatic fashion about a.d. 158. It 

 was apparently re-built later. The fragments of the inscription 

 were found used as building material in a sunken chamber of 

 Roman workmanshi2). This chamber may possibly correspond to 

 the vault of the so-called " Praetorium " at Cilurnum (Chesters), 

 Aesica (Great Chesters), and Bremenium (Rochester), in North- 

 umberland, and in that case we might suppose at Brough, as 

 we can certainly admit at Cilurnum a total re-construction of 

 the fort. The date of that re-construction at Cilurnum seems 

 to be in the reign of Septimus Severus. Whether that is also 

 the date at Brough, we cannot yet tell. A somewhat similar 

 pit at Lyne seems to belong to the middle of the second 

 century : but it must have had wooden steps, if it had steps 

 at all. 



Secondly, our inscription throws some real light on the con- 

 dition of Britain in the middle of the second century of our 



