Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/73

 4 8 THE HISTORY Bookl. fc£tly accords, the ftru&urc of the letters in general, the pun* &uation and complication of fome of them, and the centurial mark in the middle. The letters are well r cut and well-rounded, and better in both refpe&s than tl>e generality of the characters in the infcriptions of Antoninus Pius I mention not the in- fcriptions of Hadrian or any preceding Emperor, becaufe the only two that are certainly coeval with Hadrian, and the only three that are certainly previous to him, have been all fo inac- curately copied, that we cannot judge concerning the ftru&ure of their characters at all. The points alfo, being merely the round dots or periods, certainly ±>efpeak an higher antiquity than the angular triangular and leaf-like points of Antoninus's infcriptions ; as the ufe of the periods only in the former has certainly more the caft of antiquity, than the mixture of all four in the latter !• And .the complications for UN in the firft line and for VA in the fecond are certainly as little involved and modern as thofe for NT for JDK and for JO in the infcrip- tions of Antoninus *.. The centurial mark indeed may feem by its uncommon form to fix a late date to our infeription. So thought at leaft a confiderable critick in antiquities 10. But fo he thought for want of fofficient attention. The centurial mark muft have been originally CENT, CEN, or CE^ and the letters of the laft were often inverted to diftinguifh it from the fignatures of prefix names. The centurial mark therefore thus inverted be- came 33, and the moment that complications began was formed into a common character that partook equally of both, the very character which appears upon the Mancunian altar. This is certainly older, becaufe it is certainly nearer to the original mark, than > the centurial mark of Antoninus ". This occurs not upon any other infeription within the ifland, but occurs with fome little variation upon many on the conti- nent lz . Within the tfland we have no infcriptions, except the ill-copied five which I have previoufly mentioned, that carry apy higher date than the reign of Antoninus. And if this cen- turial mark had been the invention of a latex age, it muft nc- ceflarily