COMMUNICATIONS 
r 
TO THE 
MONTELLY MEETINGS 
OF THE V 
YORKSHIRE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, 
1873. 
January Tth. —The Rev. J. Kenrick called attention to 
a Sarcophagus exhibited in the room, and lately exhumed in 
the excavations for the new Railway Station. On the edge of 
the cover were the customarv letters, d. m. The commencement 
of the inscription had been unfortunately fractured, and the 
first part of the name of the occupant was consequently illegible, 
hut the last letters appeared to be latoris. The remainder 
was DEC. COL. EBORACEX. In the second line vixix annis 
xxviiii MENS the number of the months being illegible. A 
third line, wholly illegible, probably contained the name of the 
person dedicating the sarcophagus, and his relation to the 
deceased. It was known from the Sarcophagus of M. Vere- 
cundus Diogenes, of which I have given an account in “ Papers 
read before the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, page 52,” that 
Ehoracum was a colony, and inscriptions existed to a Decurion 
of Glevum (Gloucester), and Lindum (Lincoln), but this is the 
first evidence that York enjoyed a municipal constitution, of 
which the order of Decurions was an essential part. 
The town population in the imperial times was divided into 
the Decuriones and the populus or plebs. The order of the 
Decurions was composed of persons possessing a certain amount 
of property. They possessed also the nomination of the local 
magistrate, the duumvir or quatuorvir, who presided in the 
Curia. The Decurions were a sort of Town Council, and many 
things done by the community, generally of minor importance. 
c 
