[ 6 95 1 
What Pliny fais of the lead mines in Britain, 
plainly relates to his own time, and fhews they were 
then fubjedt to a Roman tax. And as he lived to the 
year 80, or near it, that very well agrees with the 
dates of the feveral infcriptions on the peices of lead 
now under confideration. The earlieft of thefe dates, 
which is in one of Camden’s infcriptions, namely, 
imp. vesp. vii. t. iMP f v. coss. anfwers to the 
year 76, in the Fafti Confulares . And that in the 
draught, which is imp. caes. domitiano. avg. 
cos. vii. to the year 81(28). And though the 
other infcription in Camden has only imp, domit. 
avg. ger. without a date; yet, as the title Germa- 
nicus appears on fome coins of D omit i an at the be- 
(28) With regard to this infcription, it may not be amifs to 
obferve, that although Domitian held his feventh confulate in the 
year 80, as appears by the Fafti \ yet, as he is here ftiled Au- 
guftus, the infcription muft refer to the year 8 1 , in which he fuc- 
ceeded to the empire, upon the death of his brother Titus, and 
took the office of conful for the eighth time the following year. 
Nor are there wanting feveral other inftances of the like nature, in 
which the laft preceding confulate of the Roman emperors con- 
tinued to be inferred in their infcriptions, among their other titles, 
till they refumed that office again. Thus Oi.ro, p. 181, gives us 
an infcription of Trajan, with Trib. poteft. 18, Ccf. 6. Where 
the date of his tribunicial power anfwered to that of his reign, 
which Pagi obferves to have been the ufual cuftom. Proleg. ad 
Diftert. Hypat. §. 6. But Trajan held his fixth confulate in the 
year 112, which was the fifteenth of his reign. So likewife in the 
Append, ad Marm. Oxon. N. 162, there is a Greek infcription of 
Hadrian, with &ripet?%nivo i^tr'icio ro /, {hretjoy to y. that is, Trib . 
pot. 10, Cof 3. Though Hadrian’s third confulate was in the fame 
year of his reign. And to mention no more, Fabretti , p. 451, 
has publifhed an infcription of the fame emperor, in which is, 
Tribuniciae poteft. 19, Cof. 3, being but two years before his 
death. 
4 T a 
g'ning 
