• C 230 ] 
office to the whole legion or cohort, but only to 
fome particular century in each of them. 
But befides thefe civil and military tejjerae there 
were others, which more efpecially related to religious 
affairs, and may therefore be called facredj to which 
the infeription on this brafs plate feemsto agree. For 
the two next words ingraven upon it, namely dei. 
mar. muft, I think, ftand for i)ei Martis. And if 
the laft word sediarvm be taken for the name of a 
town, caded Sediae , this tejfera may refped the 
God Mars , as the tutelar deity of that place. The 
religious worfhip among the Romans confided cheifly 
in facrifices and other public ceremonies, the expenfe 
of which in particular places was fupported either by 
the contributions of the inhabitants, or by private 
gifts. We have an indance of the latter in an in- 
feription fird publifhed* by Reinejius , where it is faid, 
that L. Veratius FeliciJJimus , (a) patron of 'Tolen - 
tium, (or Tollentium a municipal town in Italy) gave 
to the inhabitants their annual facrifices, which were 
offered on the eleventh of May for a plentiful har- 
ved. That infeription is cut on a brafs plate in the 
form of an oblong fquare, with a female bud in a 
pediment at the top, defigned very probably to re- 
prefent the deity, to whom they addreffed. As 
the infeription is peculiar in its kind, I fhall here 
give the whole of it, as it dands in Reinejius . 
tesseram. 
/ 
( a ) Grut , Pag , cxciv, 2, 
