3 
The next inscription, which is upon a stone too large to 
bring into this room, is on a cippiis or monumental pillar. 
It is some four feet in height, of a circular form, the upper 
part in front having been cut away in two places to give a 
smooth face for inscriptions, of which we have only one, or 
rather a part of one. Three lines only are legible, and more, 
perhaps, could have been made out if the labourers had not 
thro^vn a pail of water over the stone, and then scrubbed it, to 
satisfy their curiosity, with a wisp of straw. The legible part 
of this inscription is as follows :— 
HYLLO 
ALUMNO 
CARISSIMO 
The words alumnus or alumna have several meanings in epigra¬ 
phy. Tiberius who was horn and brought up in camp is 
called by Tacitus legionum alumnus^ ^. c., the nimsling of the 
legions. The word is also applicable to a free-born child who was 
exposed and afterwards brought up in servitude. It is also used, 
and probably in this case, of an adopted or foster child, who had 
wound itself into the deepest affections of its master. The age 
of the child and the names of his patron and adopted father are 
lost. The latter, however, may, I think, be recovered by a 
remarkable, and, to us, most interesting stone, which is pre¬ 
served in Lord Lonsdale’s important museum at Lowther. It 
was foimd at the neighbouring station of Plumpton, or Old 
Penrith. The stone is so similar to tliis at York that it is either 
made by the same mason, or executed from the same design. 
But the similarity in the stone is not all. It bears almost the 
same inscription—D. M. Hylae alumni karissimi, etc.—and we 
learn from the rest of the inscription that the child was 13 
years old, and that he was a foster son of a person called 
Claudius Severus. These names, I doubt not, might have been 
read on the York stone, had it not been for the wisp of straw. 
Hyllus and Hylas are two mythological names. The former 
was a person, according to Pausanias, famous for his gigantic 
stature ; the other a beautiful youth who, if we are to believe 
a romantic legend, was carried away by the nymphs of the foun¬ 
tain. If a conjecture is admissible as to the history of these 
