Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/417

 n s. in. MAT 27, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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partly archaeological. Prof. Lanciani writes in ' The Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome,' 1897, pp. 240-41 :

" We have no definite account of the fire of 283 under Carinus. Judging from the works of repair which it necessitated, it must have raged from the foot of the Capitoline to the top of the Sacra via, from the vicus Jugarius to the Temple of Venus and Rome."

And again, ' The Destruction of Ancient Rome,' 1901, p 22:

" We have no detailed account of the conflagra- tion in the reign of Carinus, 283 A.D., but to iudge from the repairs made by Diocletian and Maxentius, affecting the Basilica Julia, the Senate - house, the Forum Julium, and the Temple of Venus and Rome, it must have swept from one end of the Sacra Via to the other."

The written evidence, however, such as it is, supplies more details than Lanciani might lead one to suppose. The Augustan History, it is true, mentions a fire without implying that the devastation was widespread ; but the ' Chronographus anni 354 ' in a Viennese fifteenth-century MS. has the following in a brief memorandum of the reign of Carinus and Numerianus :

" His imper. fames magna fuit et operse publicse arserunt : senatum, forum Csesaris, patrimonium [Mommsen rejected the last word], basilicam luliam, et Greoostadium."

See K. L. von Urlichs, ' Codex Urbis Romee Topographicus,' pp. 191-2. Mommsen' s edition of the chronicler is in ' Mon. Germ. Auct. Antiq.,' vol. ix. Henze's notice of Carinus (=Aurelius No. 75) in the new edition of Pauly's ' Real-Encyclopadie der Class. Altertumswissenschaft ' does not refer to any other authorities for the fire. Even though confined to the Forum Roma- num and immediate vicinity, it seems to have been destructive enough. A fire that gutted the Mansion House, the Royal Exchange, and the Bank of England would be a pretty thing in conflagrations. On pp. 218-21 of ' Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Dis- coveries,' chap, viii., ' The Police and Fire Department of Ancient Rome,' Lanciani has some interesting remarks on the subject of fires. EDWARD BENSLY.

Univ. Coll., Aberystwyth.

BOOLE-LEAD : BOLE : BULL (11 S. iii. 326). In the ' N.E.D.' there are three words spelt boll, four spelt bole, two spelt bowl, and six spelt bull. The two here discussed are bole (4) and bull (1), with a reference to bull (2) thrown in.

The advice given in the book on ' Old Country Inns ' is the worst possible. The author advises us to confuse le bole (mas-

culine), which is the common English bull (the quadruped) done into Norman spelling, with la bole (feminine), which is an inferior spelling of the O.F. (and F.) boule, from the Latin bulla. In other words, he suggests that the way to catch a hare is to pursue two hares at once. I doubt if boole-lead has anything whatever to do with either of the bulls. Certainly not with the quadruped ; and although boole for F. bouU, a sphere, round ball, and the like (modern E. bowl, 2), seems as if it might help us, yet all the evi- dence points in the direction of bowl (1), which the suggestions here made suppress.

It is a pity that no date is assigned to the new piece of evidence from Derbyshire, as it is helpful : we learn from it that lead was burnt " at a boole-hill at Hardwicke," and that there were bole-works on the commons." So the phrase clearly belongs to the old Derbyshire lead-mining, for which see the by the E.D.S. in ' Reprinted Glossaries,' 1874. The "definition of 1670" about bolestids is duly quoted in the ' N.E.D.,' s.v. bole (4).
 * Derbyshire Lead-mining Terms ' published

I think that bole has the same sense as bole-stid, which meant " bowl-stead," i.e., a place in the shape of a bowl or basin, with a depression in which the lead could be suc- cessfully burnt. This is the conclusion already suggested in the ' E.D.D.,' s.v. bole (3), which is defined to mean " a place, usually a round cavity on the summit of a hill, where lead was smelted before the in- troduction of smelting mills." Next follow the definitions of bole-Mils and bole-stids, in the secondary sense of " heaps of metallic scoria,, which are the remains of the ancient method of smelting lead in the open air." Bole had also the sense of " lime-kiln " in 1724, obviously borrowed from the older use noted above. Last comes the suggestion which I heartily endorse, " probably a special meaning of the literary E. bowl ; see bole (2)," the latter being derived from A.-S. bolla, and therefore representing the literary English bowl, in the sense of " basin," and not the literary E. bowl, in the sense of a ball to play a game with.

With regard to the boole-weight, which is here stated to be 22 cwt., it may be remarked that the modern f other is usually somewhat less, viz., 19| cwt. I suppose this weight to be that whereby the bole-lead was usually measured. If so, there is no special reference to the standard " dish," also called a boule, i.e., a bowl, by which lead ore was sold, This dish, being only 28 inches long, 4 deep, and 6 wide, would not hold much. It was