Page:Notices by the Rev. T. Surridge ...of Roman inscriptions discovered at High Rochester, Risingham and Rudchester, in Northumberland ... (IA noticesbyrevtsur00surr).pdf/18



The value of this inscription consists in its confirmation of the pre-existing evidence of the facts, that Rochester of the present day was the Bremenium of the Romans, the first station on the first Iter of Antoninus, that it was one of the Castra Exploratorum, and that the first cohort of the Varduli garrisoned it.* There is no doubt of the perfect accuracy of the reading of the two local antiquaries; the prænomen of Lucilianus the Legate seems somewhat singular: but it is taken as it stands upon the stone. Your clerical correspondent may be, and no doubt is, a scholar, but the expounder of the inscriptions which the Romans left behind them in Britain must be a scholar, and something more; he must be a conversant with the style and form of these inscriptions; he must have some knowledge of the habits of that people, and the manner of their occupation of this country, in all which particulars Dr. Surridge appears to be deficient.

A SOUTHERN MEMBER OF THE ARCHÆOLOGICAL INSTITUTE.

London, September 15.

Thorneyburn, 24th September, 1852. ,—The criticism of (as he pretends to be and signs himself) a southern Member of the Archæological Society, wasted on my explanation of the inscription on the Roman Altar at Rochester, would be