An Account Of A Roman Inscription, Found At Chichester,

of several letters , that which was here disinterred of the stone was broken into four pieces . The other part of it , still wanting , is , in all probability buried under the next liouse , and will not be brought to light till that happens to be

rebuilt . The inscription is cut upon a grey Sussex marble , the length of which was six Roman feet , as may be conjectured by measuring it from the middle of the word TEHPLUM to that end of it which is entire , and is not altogether three feet English , from the point mentioned . The breadth of it is two and

three-quarters of the same feet , the letters beautifully and exactly drawn , those in the two first lines three inches long , and the rest two and a quarter . Being at Chichester in September last with Dr . Stukely , Ave took an accurate

view of this marble , which is now fixed in the wall under a window within the house where it was found , and that we might be as sure of the true reading as possible , wherever the letters were defaced , we impressed a paper with a wet

sponge into them , and by that means found those in the fifth line to have been as we have expressed them above , and not as hi other copies that have been handed about of this inscription . The oidy letter wanting in the first line is an N before EPTVNO , and so no

difficulty in reading that . As to the second , though it was more usual in inscriptions of this nature to express the donation by the word SACIIVM only , referring to the temple or altar dedicated ; yet we have so many instances

in Gruter ' s Corpus Inscriptionum , of TEMPLVM and ARAM also cut on the stones , that there is not the least occasion to say anything farther upon that point . The third line can be no other way

filled up , than as I have done it by the pricked letters . I must own , however , that I have had some scruple about the phrase of DOJIVS IJIVINA , the same thing as DO . MVS AVOVSTA , the Imperial family which I cannot saj r occurs , with any certainty of the time it was used in . before the reign of Antonius Pius , from

whom down to Constantino the Great , it is very frequently met with in Inscriptions . This kept me some time in suspense , whether this found at Chichester could be of so early a date as the time of Claudius . But as

we find several inscriptions in Grater with those words in them , or I . H . D . D . In Honorcni JJomus Divinm , which is much the same thing , without any mark of the time when they were cut , they may have been before the reign of

Antonius Pius , and then only came into more general use ; and as the time that Cogidunus lived in , will not let this be of a later standing , I think we may offer it as an authority for the use of this piece of flattery to the Emperors long before that excellent prince came to the purple . The third line , as I believe , was Ex

AVOTOKITATE TIB CLAVD , and tlie fourth COGIDVBNI . K , LEG , & C , that is , JSx Anctoritatc Tiberii Olauclii Cogiduhii Regis , Legati Augusti in Britannia ; for the following reasons . We are informed by Tacitus in Vita Agrieoloi *

that after Britain had been reduced to a Roman province by the successful arms of Aulus Plautius , and Ostorius Scapula , under the Emperor Claudius , Qucedam Oivitatcs Oogiduno Begi erani donatcv , is acl nostrum usque memoriam

fidissimus remansit , vetere ac jam priclem recepia Populi Romani coimictudine id haberd insimmenta semtntis et Beges . This Cogidunus seems to be the same person Cogidubnus in our inscription , tlie letter B in the third syllable making little or no difference in the word , especially if pronounced soft , as it ought to be , like a V consonant .

It is so AFell known to have been the custom of the Roman Libcrti and Clientes , to take the names of their patrons and benefactors , that it would be wasting of time to prove the constant usage of that practice . Now as this

Cogidubnus , who , in all probability was a petty prince of that part of the Doluni which had submitted to Claudius , and one that continued many years faithful