50 
dedicator of tlie altar. The dedicator here is a person mth the 
names of Cains Julius Crescens, who may perhaps he identified 
with Julius Crescens, who dedicated an altar to Mercury, which 
was found at BiiTens, in Scotland. The Matres Bomesticce are 
the presiding deities of the house and home. Tw'o altars 
ascribed to them have been already found in Britain, both of 
them in the neighbourhood of Carlisle. The worship of the 
mother goddess was very popular in northern Europe, and our 
learned archseologist, Mr, Charles Boach Smithe, has given in 
more than one of his works a most interesting account of it. 
They are generally represented in sculp time as “three seated 
figures holding baskets of fruit in their laps,” and various titles 
are given to them, indicating often the native country or town 
of the dedicator, who wns far removed from it. The Matres 
TransmarincB are sometimes appealed to. There are about 
thirty altars in Britain dedicated to the Be<^ Matres^ all of vv^hich, 
with the exception of two, are in the North of England. Me 
have three of these with insciiptions in our ovrn museum, one of 
which honours the mothers of Africa, Italy, and (haul, who had 
charge of the Sixth Legion Yictorious. Another, made by 
Marcus Eustius Massa, is to his ovm mothers, meaning, probably, 
those of his own country and home. Matres Slice are therefore 
partly identical with Matres Bomesticce, to whom the C. Jidius 
Crescens biumt his incense, and ascribed the comforts and joys 
with which, we hope, his house and home were filled. 
III. An altar, thirteen inches high, made of coarse sand¬ 
stone, on which the letters are somewhat worn and rubbed^ 
The inscription is peculiarly interesting, and may, I think, be 
read with tolerable accuracy now that the damp has exuded from 
the stone. I omit the contractions :— 
DEO MARTIC 
AORIYS 
ARYSPEX 
AE S. L. M. 
It is dedicated to Mars, the Bod of MNr, by Caius Agrius, the 
gOothsayer or diviner. Mars, under various titles, was greatly 
honoured among the Eomans, especialN in Britain. In the 
South of England his name occurs nine or ten tmnes on metailic 
objects, and four times upon altars. This is the forty-eighth 
