INTRODUCTION
The Roman road known as the Stanegate,Footnote 1 which runs from east to west just north of Vindolanda, has the distinction of having on this stretch two surviving milestones approximately one Roman mile apart, though, as will be seen, the distance is rather more than the ‘standard’ length of 1,000 paces, 5,000 Roman feet, equivalent to about 1,481 m or 1,617 yards. The eastern milestone, close to Vindolanda, is still complete, but uninscribed. There was once a partly legible inscription on the western one, at Seatsides, which was reported by antiquaries in the eighteenth century, but it was cut down and split in the early nineteenth century and no lettering was visible on the pieces when they were last seen. R.P. Wright's introduction to his entry for this stone, recorded in RIB I, 2308, may be cited in full. (Metric equivalents of imperial measurements here and in other quotations are added in square brackets.)
Cylindrical milestone seen in, or before, 1725 standing on the north side of the Stanegate 1 Roman mile west of the Roman milestone which stands 120 yds. [109.7 m] east of Chesterholm fort (Vindolanda). About 1815 it was split vertically into two pieces to serve as gate-posts; but the roughly rectangular base of buff sandstone, 19 × 11 × 19 in. [48 × 28 × 48 cm], with the lower end of the shaft 19 in. [48 cm] in diameter, and 24 in. [61 cm] in overall height, is still in position on the north side of the Stanegate. Two parts of the main shaft survive at the gateway on the road 160 yds. [146.3 m] to the west. Both have been roughly dressed and carry no trace of extant lettering. One comprises half the column, 19 in. [48 cm] in diameter, and stands 50 in. [1.27 m] above ground as the north gate-post. The other part, 66 in. [1.67 m] long but only 12 in. [30.5 cm] in diameter, now (1944) lies disused near the gate. Reproduced from Horsley. Base measured by R.P.W., 1944.Footnote 2
John Horsley, in Volume II of his Britannia Romana (published in April 1732, a few weeks after his death),Footnote 3 had illustrated the western of the two milestones as his inscription no. LIX (fig. 1), the drawing reproduced in RIB, commenting as follows:
LIX. Near Little chesters [one of several names formerly given to Vindolanda] there are some of the milliary stones, which are said to have been erected at the end of each mile upon the military ways … One of these is thrown down, and lies under an hedge near the rivulet, a little east of this station.Footnote 4 … But the most curious one is standing at about a mile's distance from this place to the west. The military way that passes directly from Walwick Chesters to Carrvoran is here very visible, and close by the side of it stands a piece of a large rude pillar, with a remarkable inscription upon it in large letters, but very coarse, BONO REIPVBLICAE NATO. No doubt this was a compliment to the emperor then reigning, nor is it an uncommon one. I don't find that this has ever been taken notice of before.Footnote 5
Drawing from John Horsley, Britannia Romana or the Roman Antiquities of Britain (London, 1732), Vol. II, Northumberland LIX.
In his Preface Horsley took the opportunity to include ‘some additional remarks, which have occurred on the last revisal of the printed sheets sent down to me from London’. On this milestone he was able to add a whole paragraph with new information and conjecture:
I proceed therefore to the inscription LIX on the milliary pillar near this place, BONO REIPVBLICAE NATO. This is an usual compliment paid to the emperors, but what particular emperor it is designed for in this inscription, may need a farther enquiry. The faint letters DRI, which on the last review were discovered above the word BONO, render it very probable that either Hadrian or Antoninus Pius has been intended. The implication of the letters DR is the same as in the Benwell inscription [a note refers to his drawing Northumberland no. VII, now RIB I, 1330] to the emperor Antoninus Pius, and Hadrianus is generally inserted among the names of this emperor. But as there is no room between the letters DRI and the word BONO for the other usual names of Antoninus Pius, I think Hadrian must have been the emperor to whom this pillar has been inscribed, and to him the compliment upon it is very suitable. And if this be admitted, we shall hence be furnished with a strong argument to prove, that this military way from Walwick-chesters by Little-chesters to Carrvoran was laid in the time of Hadrian, and most probably at the same time when the vallum was raised, which favours the scheme I have advanced concerning this vallum [a note refers to his Vol. I, p. 127].Footnote 6
Clearly Horsley or more likely a correspondent had had a further look at the stone between autumn 1729 and autumn 1731, which delivered the extra reading DRI. It need hardly be stated that his notion that the compliment to the reigning emperor, bono reipublicae nato, was appropriately applied to Hadrian cannot be right. The formula seems not to be attested before the late third century at the earliest and on our milestone it was undoubtedly secondary.
It is worth noting here that Horsley's account of this milestone, as also much else in his great book, was shamelessly plagiarised 20 years later by the unscrupulous John Warburton, by then Somerset Herald and a Fellow of the Royal Society (but expelled in 1757), in his best-selling Vallum Romanum, dedicated to the Duke of Cumberland, a conveniently sized quarto volume, favoured by travellers. He did not, however, cite Horsley's important postscript in his Preface.
At the end of his own Preface, Warburton wrote:
I am next to apologize for the great liberty I have taken with the works of my late learned friend, and co-adjutor, Mr. John Horsley, of Morpeth, in Northumberland. This gentleman, during my survey of that county, frequently accompanied me in my journeys, and perambulations, and to him I submitted the reading of all the Roman inscriptions I discovered on my survey, before they were engraved in my map, so that the faults he accuses me of (if any such there are) were not of my making, but his own. However, this affair has laid me under a necessity of copying his remarks and observations, and I do not fear the reader's being displeased with me on that account.Footnote 7
In Macdonald's words, ‘John Warburton bears an evil name as the Vandal who openly boasts of having prompted the scheme under which Hadrian's Wall was destroyed for many miles, in order to facilitate the building of the Newcastle–Carlisle road …’ Further, he ‘was a consummate and unblushing liar’. His claim to have been frequently accompanied by Horsley on his journeys is one of his many inventions: ‘my journeys and perambulations’ refer to 1715, when the Old Pretender was strongly supported in the county and, as an Excise supervisor based at Hexham, travelling at public expense, Warburton ‘distinguished himself by giving notice from time to time of the several steps made by the Rebells whilst they were in Northumberland’.Footnote 8
Meanwhile, William Stukeley, who toured the Wall in 1725 with his friend Roger Gale, riding from west to east, had noted in an account that was only published posthumously, over 50 years later:
Before we come to Little Chester [another of the names by which Vindolanda was then called] is a most noble column, or milestone, set upon the road: it is of a large bulk and height, with an inscription, but only not quite defaced. Mr. Gale thought he could read TVNG. upon it: it is the finest stone of this sort I have seen, and would have informed us who made the road … In a corner of a field below, by the side of a brook, and as the military [road] turns up the hill, is another such milliary stone, but no inscription legible.Footnote 9
In RIB I, 2308 R.P. Wright took DRI as part of the primary inscription, the rest as secondary:
Primary text: …]DRI
Secondary text: bon[o] | rei|public[ae]| nato.
He added in a note: ‘Presumably for l. 3: TVNG Gale; quoted by Stuk.’ In other words, he assumed that Gale had misread PVBLIC –– where Horsley's drawing shows the second and third letters, VB, in this line ligatured –– as TVNG. This must mean that Gale read P as T, the ligatured VB as V, LI as N and (which is easier to accept) C as G. Of course, Gale was far from infallible: his rendering of a key part of the famous Chichester inscription of King [Co]gidubnus was not finally demonstrated to be mistaken until over 250 years later.Footnote 10 Still, it is fair to suppose that the state of the milestone (for example, lichen growth) and the light conditions during the probably brief inspection by the two antiquaries could have made the secondary inscription more or less invisible and have revealed an underlying TVNG (probably in smaller and better carved lettering than the ‘very coarse’ secondary text). However this may be, Stukeley's inference is not registered by Wright. It surely deserves discussion, since it has not previously been notedFootnote 11 that Gale's TVNG perhaps indeed ‘informs us who made the road’. Only since Robin Birley's discovery of the writing-tablets has the presence of the cohors I Tungrorum at nearby Vindolanda become known.Footnote 12
COHORS I TUNGRORUM AT VINDOLANDA
There is now ample evidence, not only from the writing-tablets but also from stone and other inscriptions, for this cohort having been stationed at Vindolanda in the later first and early second centuries. For the sake of completeness, it may first be noted that the first mention of the Tungrians in Britain is Tacitus’ account of the role in the Battle of Mons Graupius of four Batavian and two Tungrian cohorts.Footnote 13 It is not known where these units were stationed at the time of the battle, or indeed how long they had been in Britain, but it may be assumed that they were brought to the island by the governor Q. Petillius Cerialis in the year a.d. 71, when he arrived after suppressing the Batavian revolt.Footnote 14
To turn to the evidence for cohors I Tungrorum at Vindolanda, it derives from several of the early periods, which may be summarised as follows:
Period 1: c. a.d. 85–92. Only the defensive ditches (four on the west side and one on the south) have been examined; they are dated principally by a deposit of La Graufesenque terra sigillata in the innermost western ditch. The two strength reportsFootnote 15 and an unpublished stylus-tablet, show that the garrison was the coh. I Tungrorum.
Period 2: c. a.d. 92–c. a.d. 100/103. A much larger fort, of which the central buildings, with via principalis running north–south, were built above the innermost Period 1 ditch and rampart. The garrison was evidently at first coh. I Tungrorum, by now milliaria; then certainly coh. VIIII Batavorum equitata, also probably milliaria; but unlike I Tungrorum, it was equitata. The south gate and part of the praetorium have been excavated. West of the via principalis, overlying the outer Period 1 ditches, was part of a Period 2 and 3 building, probably a barrack-block, overlaid by a Period 4 structure, perhaps a schola.
Period 3: c. a.d. 97/100–c. a.d. 105. The garrison was coh. VIIII Batavorum equitata. Numerous tablets derive from this period, mostly from the praetorium and adjacent roads. Dating evidence includes tablets with consular dates for a.d. 98, Inv. 87.725 (an unpublished stylus tablet), and a.d. 103 and 104, perhaps also a.d. 102, all from Tab. Vindol. II, 581. The main excavated structures, part of the praetorium and south gate, may be described as largely a rebuilding, on a more substantial scale, of the underlying Period 2 ones.
Period 4: c. a.d. 105–c. a.d. 120 or somewhat later. The garrison was coh. I Tungrorum milliaria, plus a cavalry detachment, equites Vardulli, from the coh. I fida Vardullorum equitata,Footnote 16 and some legionaries.Footnote 17 Buildings excavated include a barrack-block overlying levelled remains of the Periods 2–3 praetoria; part of another barrack-block further west; a possible schola adjacent to the Period 4 praetorium; a possible hospital; and a ‘palatial building’ originally assigned to Period 5. Dating evidence includes a tablet dated by the consuls of a.d. 111,Footnote 18 coins of Trajan and one coin of Hadrian. It is difficult to fix the exact date at which Period 4 ended.
Period 5: c. a.d. 120 or somewhat later to c. a.d. 128, in which a fabrica replaced the Period 4 barrack-block overlying the earlier praetorium.Footnote 19
Of the writing-tablets the earliest and most important are the two strength reports: the better preserved one was found in the innermost Period 1 western ditch. It is dated xv K(alendas) Ịuṇịas, 18 May, but does not name the year. It registers the n(umerus) p(urus) [co]ḥ(ortis) ị Tụng̣̣̣rọṛụṃ cui prae(e)st Iulius Verec̣ụndus praef(ectus), ‘the net number of the First Cohort of Tungrians, of which the commander is Julius Verecundus, prefect’. The total number of men was 752, including six centurions; but 456 men were absent, including five out of the six centurions. The majority of the absentees, 337, were at Coria, identifiable as the Roman fort at Corbridge. Of the 296 still present, 15 are listed as sick, six as wounded and ten as lippientes, suffering from conjunctivitis.Footnote 20 An unpublished stylus-tablet found in the same innermost western ditch carried an address ending […] c(o)ho(rtis) Tung(rorum).Footnote 21 The much more fragmentary second strength report was found in the outermost of the four Period 1 western ditches. It is clearly a similar document, refers to the same cohort and the same prefect, and indeed may even have been written by the same scribe as the first one.Footnote 22 It must be stressed that the more complete strength report came from a Period 1 context, not Period 2 as urged by the editors, who have regularly been followed by others.Footnote 23 The editors were understandably influenced by the presence in the Period 2 fort of other documents naming the prefect Julius Verecundus. It is, however, preferable to explain this situation otherwise. One may infer that the 337 men at Coria were recruits being trained and that the cohort was at this time being enlarged from a standard total of some 480 men to 800, i.e. was about to become a cohors milliaria.Footnote 24 Fragments of letters to the prefect Julius Verecundus have been found in both Period 1 and Period 2 contexts.Footnote 25 The Period 1 fort was only large enough to house a cohors quingenaria. It may be inferred that the Period 2 fort was about double the size of its predecessor, since its central range of buildings was built above the line of the innermost western ditch. As two of the letters to Julius Verecundus were found in the Period 2 praetorium, Robin Birley inferred that it was built by the First Tungrians, now definitely milliaria, and that this cohort carried on for a time as the garrison at Vindolanda, occupying, from c. a.d. 92, the much larger Period 2 fort.Footnote 26
It may be noted here that in spite of the change of size of his regiment, Julius Verecundus continued to have the title praefectus, not tribunus, the standard one for commanders of cohortes milliariae. In fact, all the known commanders of both coh. I and coh. II Tungrorum, when milliary, still had the title praefectus. The reason could be that members of the Tungrian aristocracy had previously been given this title in the homeland, as praefecti civitatis, administering their people for Rome. If the commanders of the Tungrian regiments were also Tungrian nobles, as seems probable, they may have insisted on retaining the title ‘prefect’. A similar situation may be detected in the case of the Batavians.Footnote 27
It is clear that coh. I Tungrorum was replaced during Period 2, probably c. a.d. 97,Footnote 28 by coh. VIIII Batavorum, which before long rebuilt at least parts of the fort in what is labelled Period 3, lasting from c. a.d. 97/100 to a.d. 105. The Batavians remained for the rest of Period 2 and for the whole of Period 3, at the end of which the cohort was withdrawn to serve on the Continent. Thereupon the coh. I Tungrorum returned, and radically reconstructed the fort: this was Vindolanda's Period 4, from a.d. 105 until at least early in Hadrian's reign. A letter found in a Period 4 context was written to Priscinus, clearly the prefect of coh. I Tungrorum. The first sheet reads: Oppius Niger Priscino [suo] ṣ[alutem] Crispum et P̣ẹ[… mili]ṭeṣ coh(ortis)·i·Tungrorum quos cum epistulis ad consularem n(ostrum) miseras, a Bremetennaco …, ‘Oppius Niger to his Priscinus greeting. Crispus and Pe…, soldiers of cohors I Tungrorum, whom you had sent with letters to our governor, [I have sent on?] from Bremetennacum …’. Only the closing greeting of the second sheet survives, ṿale dọmịṇẹ frater.Footnote 29 Three further tablets are very fragmentary letters, also to Priscinus, and also from Period 4 levels: of Tab. Vindol. II, 296+add. only the opening survives, [F]ḷạvius F̣ontanus Priscino [suo] ṣạḷ[utem]; 297 is from [Fi]ṛminus to Priscinus; it has a few legible phrases, including, at the beginning of the letter, […] niḥil · malo · animo · feci, ‘I have done nothing with ill intent’, and in the next line comes the words in contractụ, ‘in a (or the) contract’. Firminus calls Priscinus frater, ‘brother’, so was presumably a fellow-officer. Of 298 virtually no text survives except Priscino, ‘to Priscinus’, at the beginning; but the address shows it was written to him [a Ca]ecilio Septembre, ‘by Caecilius September’. The latter, an officer, was also a correspondent of Flavius Cerialis, prefect of coh. VIIII Batavorum in Period 3.Footnote 30 Further tablets naming Priscinus are all very fragmentary and from a Period 3 context,Footnote 31 as is a more interesting one, which one may infer was written to his wife: … qua · me […]cunde · consolarịs sicut mater facẹret. hunc enim · adfectum animus meus … et comṃ[ode] conṿaḷẹscebam · tu [..] quid agas cum Priscinó tuo …, ‘with which you … console me, just as a mother would do. For my mind … this sympathy (?) … and I was convalescing comfortably. As for you, what are you doing with your Priscinus?’ A tablet which comes from the beginning of a letter, probably from a Period 4 level, may be quoted: quod ̣P̣rịsciṇum n(ostrum) ịṇcommodiụs mansisse scrịpsisti mihi t…[…]rum…[ ], ‘because you write to me that our Priscinus has inconveniently remained …’.Footnote 32 Numerous other writing-tablets from the periods when the Tungrians were at Vindolanda might be mentioned, as giving an indication of the names of the members of the cohort, but they are not relevant in the present context.Footnote 33
It is not absolutely certain how long the Tungrians remained at Vindolanda, but it now seems highly probable that they were still there at the start of Hadrian's reign, in the light of other evidence. First, there is a partly preserved funerary stone (reused in the fourth-century praetorium):
D(is) [M(anibus)] | T(itus)· Ann[…] | centur[io cohortis I] | Tungr[orum stipen]|diorum [… annorum …] | T · in bell[o inter] | fectus […] fil(ius) et Arc[…lib(ertus)?] | h(eredes) e[x test(amento) f(aciundum) c(uraverunt)].
To the divine shades (and) Titus Ann[…], centurion of the [First] Cohort of Tungrians, of … years of service, [aged … years], T. (= deceased?), killed in the war: […] his son and Arc… [his freedman?], his heirs, had this made in accordance with his testament.Footnote 34
The date has to be inferred. In view of the wording, with D.M. abbreviated, but Tungrorum and stipendiorum written out in full, the war in which this centurion died can be plausibly identified with that which broke out on Hadrian's accession in a.d. 117, causing serious Roman losses.Footnote 35 One may also register an iron spearhead inscribed Tung(rorum) in punched letters. It came from the packing above a Period 5 floor, between the mid-second-century fort ditches. Of course, this object could have been made long before it was lost.Footnote 36
A second stone inscription, found in 2012, is a fragmentary dedication to a previously unknown goddess.Footnote 37 It was published with the following reading: Ahvardvae | deae | [co]ḥ(ors) Ī Tungṛ[o|rum ∞ (milliaria) e]x [voto | posuit].Footnote 38 An alternative version was subsequently offered: Ahvardvae | deae | [co]h(ors) Ī Tungr[o|rum] ∞ (milliaria) [cui | praeest praenomen nomen | cognomen | praef(ectus].Footnote 39 These details are not material in the present context, the question being what date can be assigned to the stone. Because the rather rare placing of the word for deity after the deity's name best fits an early Hadrianic date,Footnote 40 it is plausible to assign it to the same period as the centurion's tombstone.
Further, there is a fragment of a military diploma. From parts of the consuls’ names it can be dated to the first three months of a.d. 146; it was issued to [A]mandius, a veteran of [… co]h. I Tun[gror(um) ∞ (milliariae) (?),] cui [prae(e)st …] Paterniu[s … ]. If discharged after the standard 25 years, [A]mandius must have been recruited in a.d. 121.Footnote 41 The fact that his diploma was found at Vindolanda suggests that he served there initially and settled there when his service ended. But it is quite possible that the cohort had in the meantime been based elsewhere. In due course, it was to be based at Housesteads. A probably Hadrianic inscription from Carrawburgh (Brocolitia) on Hadrian's Wall, a relatively late addition to the system, is a dedication-slab: [……Had]ṛị[ano Aug(usto)…] co(n)s(uli) [……co]h(ors) I Tun[grorum…] fec[it…].Footnote 42 This indicates that the Tungrians had been building (or helping to build) this fort. But Carrawburgh was too small to house a milliary cohort, unlike nearby Housesteads (Vercovicium), the fort at which the First Tungrians were eventually to be stationed for over 200 years.
The solution once seemed to be that the cohort had been reduced in size under Hadrian, for it is listed without the milliaria sign on the diplomas for the British army of a.d. 122.Footnote 43 It was long supposed that this was because the cohort had sent a detachment to the army of Noricum, as appeared to be recorded on a fragmentary diploma for that province's army, from the years between a.d. 133 and 138. The same was also supposedly the case on another incomplete Norican diploma.Footnote 44 But the reading of the Tungrian cohort's number on these two diplomas as I has been convincingly rejected.Footnote 45 Further, on a subsequently published diploma of the British army, of August a.d. 127, the cohort is once again listed as milliary.Footnote 46 Hence one must seek another explanation for the absence of the milliary symbol for coh. I Tungrorum on the diplomas of a.d. 122 and 124. It can hardly have been to save space for the engraver, since other milliary units on these documents are properly so labelled. Perhaps the cohort had been so depleted in the war in which the centurion T. Ann[ius …] lost his life that it was for a few years no longer milliary; but by a.d. 127 was back to strength.
As to when it first moved from Vindolanda to Housesteads, it may be that a fragmentary dedication-slab from the latter fort registered it there under Hadrian: im[p(eratori) Caes(ari) divi Traian(i) Parth(ici) fil(io)] | d[ivi Ner(vae) nep(oti) Traian(o) Hadriano Aug(usto)] coh[(ors) I Tungrorum (?)| mi[l(liaria)…].Footnote 47 As mentioned above, the Tungrian cohort could have helped in the construction of Carrawburgh from a new station at Housesteads, rather than from Vindolanda, alongside cohors I Aquitanorum, also attested as building at Carrawburgh under Hadrian, during the governorship of Sex. Julius Severus in the early a.d. 130s.Footnote 48
At all events, at latest soon after the death of Hadrian, cohors I Tungrorum must have moved north. It is recorded at Castlecary, on the Antonine Wall, by a dedication-slab: Imp(eratori) Caes(ari) T(ito) Ael(io) Ant(onino) | Aug(usto) Pio p(atri) p(atriae) | coh(ors) I Tungro|rum fecit ∞ (milliaria).Footnote 49 But before the occupation of the Antonine Wall ended, it had been replaced at Castlecary by cohors I fida Vardullorum equitata civium Romanorum milliaria.Footnote 50 One further, fragmentary diploma, dated by the name of the governor, [Sex. Calpurnio Ag]ricola names the cohort, but only […e]t I Tung(rorum) […] is preserved, so it is not certain whether it was labelled milliaria.Footnote 51 Thereafter one can point to a rich crop of inscriptions at Housesteads;Footnote 52 the cohort is still listed there in the Notitia Dignitatum: tribunus cohortis primae Tungrorum, Borcovicio [sic: to be emended to Vercovicio], by when all the commanders of the old auxiliary cohorts had the title of tribune.Footnote 53
ROAD-BUILDING ON THE STANEGATE IN THE EARLY SECOND CENTURY
To return to the question of road-building in the early second century. Two partly preserved writing-tablets from Period 3 contexts, when cohors VIIII Batavorum was the garrison, have been thought to suggest that roadworks were already in progress. It was surely the commander of the Batavians who was informed in a letter from an unknown writer that steps had been taken ‘that wagons may be given to you and … other … to Vocusius Africanus the prefect …’.Footnote 54 Another unknown writer, also presumed to be addressing the Vindolanda garrison commander, discusses wagon-loads of stone in a further fragmentary letter. The key passage is: quem modum carrulorum | missurus sis domine | deliberare tecum debes | ad lapidem portandum, ‘you should weigh up in your mind, my Lord, what quantity of wagons you are going to send to carry stone’.Footnote 55 Stone was already being quarried just to the north-east of the fort, up the Cockton burn, and perhaps on nearby Barcombe hill, where it was extensively worked at latest in Hadrian's reign.Footnote 56 It might be inferred that the Vindolanda garrison was being required to contribute to a major programme involving several units, most likely road-construction. It has indeed been suggested that the wagon-loads of stone mentioned in this writing-tablet must have been intended for road-building, hence that work was being carried out on the Stanegate adjacent to Vindolanda early in Trajan's reign.Footnote 57 But of course large quantities of stone were also required in the immediate outskirts of the fort, in particular for the large bath-house, discovered in 2000, although work on this may have begun in Period 2: among the large numbers of men whose duties are listed in a writing-tablet from Period 2 or 3 are 18 s[tr]uctores ad balneum, ‘builders to the bath-house’.Footnote 58 A document dated 7 March in an unknown year, but clearly within Period 3, records that 30 structores were ‘sent to make the guest-house’, ad hospitị[u]ṃ … faciendum, and 19 men were assigned to ‘burning stone’, [a]ḍ lapidem flạṃṃạndum, presumably quarried nearby, to produce lime for mortar.Footnote 59 One letter suggests that the Vindolanda garrison was supplying lime, presumably for building but hardly for roadworks, to another fort.Footnote 60
The Batavians may indeed have been carrying out roadworks early in Trajan's reign, and the Tungrians may simply have resurfaced the Stanegate about a decade and a half later, in expectation of Hadrian's visit.Footnote 61 Road repairs needed to be carried out regularly. The war in which the centurion of cohors I Tungrorum lost his life, was probably linked to the British uprising on Hadrian's accession (see above). The Roman response, culminating in the decision to build the Wall and Hadrian's arrival in a.d. 122 would have involved a good deal of extra heavy traffic on the Stanegate and connecting roads.Footnote 62 It could be argued that the milestone was set up simply to make a good impression on Hadrian. Such a practice — erecting a milestone in honour of the emperor without any roadworks having been carried out — was without doubt commonly the case in the third and fourth centuries.Footnote 63 It is less likely in the early second century.
The army no doubt regularly built and repaired roads, but its role was seldom explicitly stated on milestones.Footnote 64 ‘Native’ forced labour may have been used extensively, if one believes the rhetorical complaint in Calgacus’ speech before the battle of Mons Graupius: ‘corpora ipsa ac manus silvis ac puludibus emuniendis inter verbera et contumelias conteruntur’, ‘our very bodies and hands are worn down by metalling roads in forests and marshes’.Footnote 65 However this may be, the engineering work involved — of which by paradox the sole detailed literary description is supplied by the poet Statius, celebrating the via Domitiana Footnote 66 — must surely in a frontier district have been the work of military structores and architecti.Footnote 67
Auxiliary units seldom feature on milestones anywhere, although there are examples in a few provinces.Footnote 68 But this is the case on an early Antonine one from Ingliston, Midlothian, not far south of the Firth of Forth, and close to the line of the Antonine Wall, which was then being constructed. It shows that an auxiliary cohort, cohors I Cugernorum, was road-building; and also that two lines of the text had been deleted — the milestone was previously thought to be Severan, with the deletion being of the name of Geta, so often treated this way. But once the two parts of the stone were reunited, it was apparent that [Anto]nino must have come in line 3 rather than line 5, and refer to Antoninus Pius, not Caracalla. The deletion must therefore be of the name of the governor, tentatively identified as Cornelius Priscianus, whose term of office is datable to c. a.d. 142 (Antoninus is cos. [I]II, hence dating the stone to the years a.d. 140–44). This man was subsequently condemned in the Senate at Rome for ‘disturbing the peace of the province of Spain’ on 15 September a.d. 145: presumably he undertook some action interpreted as an attempted coup when governor of Hispania Tarraconensis, a post to which he will have moved after Britain. A conjectural restoration of the Ingliston stone may be offered:
[Imp(eratori) Caes(ari) T(ito) | Ael(io) Hadr(iano) Anto]|nino Aug(usto) Pio,4| p(atri) p(atriae), co(n)s(uli) [I]II,| [[sub ?Corn(elio)| Prisciano?, | leg(ato) Aug(usti) pr(o) pr(aetore)?]],| [co]h(ors) I Cugernor(um) 8| [Tri]monti(o) m(ilia) p(assuum) | […].
For the Emperor Caesar Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Augustus Pius, father of the fatherland, consul three times, under Cornelius Priscianus (?), propraetorian legate of the Emperor, the First Cohort of Cugerni (set this up). From Trimontium, … miles.Footnote 69
In view of the use of ligature (I and O in Pio, line 3) and a small O inserted between N and R in Cugernor(um), in the surviving part of the text, it might be possible to restore the governor's name a little differently. In the light of the above, an extremely hypothetical restoration of the primary text on the western Stanegate milestone may be offered: [Imp. Caes. Trai|anus Ha]dri[anus | Aug. p.m. tr. p. VI | p.p. cos. III 4| sub A. Platorio Nepote, leg(ato) Aug(usti) pr(o) pr(aetore)? | coh. I] Tung[rorum | a Coris | m.p. XVI.Footnote 70 One might perhaps suggest that in the case of this milestone and of the Ingliston milestone auxiliary cohorts were assigned to road-building because the legions were fully engaged in the construction of, respectively, Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall.
Governors are not regularly named on provincial milestones: it has been calculated that of over 6,000 milestones set up before a.d. 284 only 13 per cent name the governor.Footnote 71 Only two cases are known in Britain, apart from the Ingliston example: C. Julius Marcus under Caracalla in a.d. 213 and Cl(audius) Xenophon in a.d. 223 under Severus Alexander.Footnote 72 It has been plausibly suggested that the governors concerned were motivated by their wish to display themselves and by their self-importance.Footnote 73 The former motive certainly fits C. Julius Marcus, who was responsible for a large series of dedications honouring Caracalla and his mother Julia Domna, several of them with the unique formula, pro pietate ac devotione communi, ‘out of common dutifulness and devotion’. It looks as if Marcus was desperate to ingratiate himself with Caracalla, but in vain — his name was systematically deleted, except on the milestone.Footnote 74 For Xenophon, who is also recorded restoring a gate and towers at Vindolanda, there is no obvious motivation.Footnote 75
One further observation is required about this stretch of the Stanegate. The distance between the two milestones, as mentioned at the start of this paper, at some 1,698 yards or 1,552 m, is rather more than the ‘standard’ length of 1,000 paces, 5,000 Roman feet, equivalent to about 1,481 m or 1,617 yards. Bishop has recently noted that the group of milestones at Crindledykes,Footnote 76 east of the standing Vindolanda milestone, is about the same distance from its western counterpart, about 1,550 m. He makes the attractive suggestion that the distances imply a pes of 0.31 m, close to the so-called pes Drusianus, reckoned to be 0.33 m.Footnote 77 This term, about which much has been written, is known only from a passage in Hyginus: ‘item dicitur in Germania in Tongris pes Drusianus qui habet monetalem pedem et sescunciam’, ‘the same is called in Germania among the Tongri the Drusian foot, which has the length of the “monetal” foot plus one eighth’.Footnote 78 It would serve little purpose to attempt further analysis here, but it may simply be suggested that the cohors I Tungrorum was particularly likely to have used a unit of measurement which the Romans had encountered in Tongris.
THE SECONDARY INSCRIPTION ON RIB I, 2308
The wording of our secondary text, bon[o] | rei|public[ae] | nato, ‘born for the good of the commonwealth’, was to become a common formula in the fourth century.Footnote 79 The earliest known example seems to be on a milestone in the Valais, two Roman miles from Forum Claudii Vallensium (Octodurus), datable to the Tetrarchy, hence from the years a.d. 292–305: the ‘unconquered emperors’, invicti Aug(usti), Diocletian and Maximian, and the ‘most noble Caesars’, nobili[ssimi] C{c}a[e]ss, Constantius and Galerius, are styled [bo]no r.p. natis et invict[is p]rincip[ib]us.Footnote 80 A supposedly earlier example, from north-west Spain, heavily restored as referring to Carus (reigned a.d. 282–3), must be regarded as doubtful. The text offered by the editors is [D(omino) n(ostro) victori |ac tr]iump[hatori semper | Aug(usto) M(arco) Aur(elio) C]aro | [Germ]anico | [maximo p]atri patr[iae] | [A]ug(usto) imp(eratori) I trib(unicia) [potestate] | [bon]o rei (publicae) nato. But they concede that their transcription is very conjectural: the entry is headed ‘Emperador indeterminado’ and is not indexed under Carus.Footnote 81 At any rate, Constantine I soon used the label on his early coinage, issued from Lugdunum between a.d. 307 and 309. The formula was discussed in full by Andreas Alföldi, who cites these coins as evidence that Constantine was called bono rei publicae natus before his conversion (no doubt assuming that this took place in a.d. 312). As he points out, the sentiment occurs at a much earlier date. He cites among other examples Cicero on the future Augustus, ‘quo maior adulescens Caesar maioreque deorum immortalium beneficio rei publicae natus est’, ‘and on this account we ought to consider Caesar a still more admirable young man; and that a still greater kindness of the immortal gods which gave him to the commonwealth’; and an inscription of a.d. 32, which hails the providentia of Tiberius (after the suppression of Sejanus), nati ad aeternitatem Romani nominis, ‘born for the eternity of the Roman name’. In the later Empire the formula was understood in the sense that the emperors were not only destined to reign but that they had received from heaven all the qualities of royalty. At all events, what Alföldi called the ‘colourless’ nature of the titulature made it suitable for use by Christian as well as pagan emperors.Footnote 82 It was certainly favoured by the apostate Julian as well as by his Christian kinsmen and predecessors and by subsequent Christian rulers.Footnote 83 The latest milestone inscriptions in Britain are from the house of Constantine, but of course this does not help to date the Seatsides secondary inscription. All the same, as Eberhard Sauer points out, ‘the latest milestones from Britain post-date Crispus’ and Constantine II's elevation to the rank of Caesar in a.d. 317, and quite possibly were even set up to mark this event … [so] it seems unlikely to me that your milestone is much later’.Footnote 84
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Much appreciated encouragement, advice and comment were offered at varying stages by Andrew Birley, Robin Birley, Paul Holder, Anne Kolb, David Mattingly, Alexander Meyer and (especially) Eberhard Sauer, as well as by one of Britannia’s referees. None of them must be assumed to agree with everything in this paper and any remaining mistakes are my own.
