This account, so natural, satisfied me that Vindogladia must here be fixed, and Wimbornminster be robbed of that honour, where the tide of antiquarians have hitherto carried it, for no other reason but name sake; the distances and road being repugnant. I suppose the name signifies the white river, or vale; vint, white; gladh, a river; whence our glade, or valley where a river runs. This place being not capable of affording me a proper mansion, I left the more particular scrutiny of it for another opportunity.
Hence I pursued the road on the opposite chalk-hill, where they have dug it away to burn for lime, but much degenerate from Roman mortar in strength: it was not long before I absolutely lost it in great woods beyond Long Crechil; but by information I learnt that it passes the Stour at Crayford bridge below Blandford, where I was obliged to take up my nightly quarters. I was glad to gain the downy country again westward of it, and still full of barrows of all sorts by clusters or groups. I frequently observed on the sides of hills long divisions, very strait, crossing one another with all kinds of angles: they look like the balks or meres of ploughed lands, and are really made of flint over-grown with turf: they are too small for ploughed lands, unless of the most ancient Britons, who dealt little that way; but just such like have I seen in what I always imagine British camps. Above the town of Blandford is an odd intrenchment on a hill, a squarish work, with others like the foundation of small towers: a barrow near it.
Blandford is a pretty town, pleasantly seated in a flexure of the river, before charming meadows, and rich lands. Wood thrives exceedingly here: indeed this country is a fine variety of downs, woods, lawns, arable, pasture, and rich valleys; and an excellent air: the dry easterly winds, the cold northern, and the western moisture, are tempered by the warm southern saline breezes from the ocean, and nearest the sun. The incredible number of barrows that over-spread this country from the sea-side to North Wiltshire, persuade me a great people inhabited here before the Belgæ, that came from Spain, which we may call the Albionites: but it is not a time to discourse of that. This year, wherever I travelled, I found the bloom of the hedge-rows, and indeed all trees whatever, excessively luxuriant beyond any thing I ever knew. In this part the buck-thorn, or rhamnus catharticus, is very plentiful; and a traveller, if he pleases, may swallow a dozen of the ripe berries, not without use. Near the passage of the Icening-street at Crayford is Badbury, a vast Roman camp, where antiquities have been found.
About three mile beyond this I found another ditch and rampart, which I believe to be the first of the colony of the Belgæ; it has indeed a rude ancient look; so that they made four of these boundaries successively as their power enlarged, the last being Wansdike, between North and South Wiltshire. By what I could see or learn, in travelling over this intricate country, the Roman road passes upon a division between Pimpern and Bere hundred to Bere; and that I reckon a convenient distance for a station between Vindogladia and Dorchester, being near the middle: on one side it is about thirteen mile, on the other nine. Now in the last journey of Antoninus before mentioned, immediately after Ibernium.Vindogladia follows Durnovaria M. P. IX. Dorchester being very truly nine mile off this town Bere, and which is a market-town too, but far otherwise as to Wimbornminster; I doubt not but this is the true place designed in the Itinerary; but that a town is slipped out of the copies. I think I have fortunately discovered it in the famous Ravennas, by which we may have hopes of restoring this journey to its original purity. That author mentions a town next to Bindogladia, which he calls Ibernium: this verily is our Bere. Mr. Baxter corrects it into Ibelnium, and places it at Blandford, for no other reason, as I conceive, but because he imagined it must necessarily be hereabouts. I was not a little pleased when I found my notion highly confirmed by a great and elegant Ro. Camp.Roman camp upon a hill near Bere, I think it is called Woodbury, where a yearly fair is kept: TAB. XLV 2d Vol.this is between Bere and Milburn upon the river: it is doubly intrenched, or rather a double camp one within another. This town of Bere denominates the hundred too. In this case, where a Roman camp, a road, and all distances concur, which in the others are very abhorrent from reality, I imagine the reader will find little difficulty in passing over to my sentiments. The town is called Bere Regis, and the camp is the Æstiva to the town. Of Dorchester I have spoken already, beyond which is the original of the Icening-street: from thence I travelled along the southern coasts, in order to come to the beginning of this seventh journey.
Wareham is denominated from the passage or ford over the two rivers between which it is situate, where now are bridges: this has been a Roman town. A great square is taken in, with a very high vallum of earth, and a deep ditch: there has been a castle by the water-side, west of the bridge, built by William the Conqueror, perhaps upon the Roman. It is an old corporation, now decayed, the sands obstructing the passage of vessels; and Pool, being better seated, from a fisher’s town has rose to be a rich flourishing sea-port, robbing this place. They say here have been many parish-churches, and a mint. This is probably the Moriconium of Ravennas, as Mr. Baxter asserts. I heard of Roman coins being found here. This country is sandy for the most part, as commonly toward the sea-coasts. I saw a ruinous religious house as I came by the side of the river Frome. This haven is of a vast extent, like a sea, having a narrow entry; an indulgent formation of Nature to her beloved island of Great Britain. I saw vast stones lying loose upon this sand, in some places, like the Wiltshire grey weathers. It is a melancholy unpleasant view hereabouts for travellers, when they come from the other delightful scenes of the better parts of Dorsetshire: it is moory for the most part, full of ling or heath, as on all the sea-coasts here, from the chalk-hills in Dorsetshire to those in Sussex. Two rocks about Corf castle have an odd appearance hence.
Wimburnminster is a small place, of no great trade: a large old church with two towers; the middle one in the cross very old, and most of the church before the time of the Conquest: this middle steeple had a spire which fell down. The river Stour runs a little way south of the town, through a large bridge; sdour, a sibilus put to the old Celtic word. The river Alen in several divisions runs through the town, which makes me think it to be the Alauna of Ravennas, put next to Bolnelaunium.Bolnelaunium, which I conjecture to be Christ’s-church by the sea-side, that being subsequent to Moriconium: that it was not Pool, as Mr. Baxter places it, is plain from a reason just mentioned, Pool being an upstart. Wimburnminster stands in a large extended fruitful vale like a meadow, with much wood about it. These rivers abound with fish. Here was a nunnery built anno 712, by Cuthburga sister to king Ina. King Etheldred was buried here.
From hence I went to Ringwood upon the river Avon, over a deep sandy moor; which has ever been thought the Regnum.Regnum in the Itinerary, and begins the Iter septimum of Antoninus.TAB. XLVI. 2d Vol. It is a large thriving place, full of good new brick houses, seated by the side of a great watery valley, the river dividing itself into several streams, and frequently overflowing large quantities of the meadow: it seems well calculated to have been an old British town: they deal pretty much in leather here, and woollen manufactures of stockings, druggets, narrow cloth. Roman discoveries I could make little; but the name and distances seem to establish the matter: so I hastened through New Forest, where I found it necessary to steer by the compass, as at sea. They tell us at Wattonsford the memory of Tyrrel is still preserved, as passing over there when he unawares shot William Rufus. The soil is sand, gravel, stone, clay by parcels: these are pleasant solitudes for a contemplative traveller, did not the intricacies of the roads give one uneasiness. Here are whole acres of the most beautiful fox-gloves that one can see, rising upon a strong stem, adorned with numerous bell-flowers as high as one’s horse. Mr. Baxter has a right notion of this name, signifying lemurum manicæ, from the supposed fairies. I take these names, and foxes bells, and the like, to be reliques of the Druids, who did great cures by them; for this is a plant of powerful qualities, when prudently administered, in a constitution that will bear it. I observe we derive the names of very many plants from the old Celtic language, as I believe the Greeks and Latins did likewise. The king’s house, as called still, was at Lyndhurst: the duke of Bolton has a hunting-seat thereabouts. I rode through an old camp in the midst of the forest: it is overgrown with wood, seems to have been round: at bottom is a spring: no doubt but it is a British Br. oppidum.oppidum. You may see Southampton from thence. They say the king was killed hereabouts. Here is a great plantation of young oaks, for the use of the crown: a great deal of fine oak-timber left; but the beech-trees are very stately and numerous.
Romsey was unquestionably a Roman town, and its present name shows as much. The church is a noble old pile of architecture, arched with stone in the form of a cross, with semi-circular chapels in the upper angles. These churches, hereabouts called minsters, were doubtless built by the Saxon kings as soon as they became christian: the manner of their structure is much like those built by queen Helena in Palestine: at the west end of it is a bit of an old wall, perhaps belonging to the nunnery built here by king Edgar. I heard of a silver Roman coin found here. This town is an old corporation, in situation extraordinary pleasant, having woods, corn-fields, meadows, pastures, around it in view: the river and rivulets, which are many, have a rapid course.
Two miles before I came to Winchester, the downs of chalk begin again with barrows upon them. I saw several double ones. The walls of Winchester inclose a long square about 700 paces one way, 500 the other: it stands on the western declivity of a hill,TAB. LXXXIII. the river running below on the east. Many branches, and cuts of it too, pass through the midst of the city, and render their gardens very pleasant: the walls and gates, as repaired in times long after the Roman, and chiefly of flint, are pretty intire; no doubt, built upon the old Roman. In the higher part of the city is the castle, which overlooks the whole:[138] here is a famed round table, where king Arthur’s knights used to sit. I saw some great ruins still left of the walls and towers that belonged to it; but the main of it was pulled down when Sir Christopher Wren projected the king’s palace there in king Charles the IId’s reign: it fronts the west end of the cathedral. The houses in the town were bought in order to make a street between both, which would have had a noble effect. This palace is a large pile of building, and beautiful, yet with all the plainness that was necessary to save an extravagant expence, or that became a royal retirement: it fills up three sides of a large square, so that the opening of the wings or front looks over the city: three tier of windows, twenty-six in a row, fill up every side externally, besides the fronton in the middle of each side, composed of four Corinthian pilasters: a handsome balustrade runs quite round the top: the inside of this open court is more elegant, and enriched with portico’s, &c. the late duke of Tuscany gave some fine marble pillars towards the adorning it. A great bridge was to have been built across the foss in the principal front; and a garden, park, &c. were to have been made before the back front: the citizens entertain great hopes, that since the happy increase of the royal family, this palace will be finished: it is of plain brick-work, but the window-cases, fascias, cornice, &c. of good Portland stone. There is a great old chapel near it. This place was the residence of the potent kings of the West Saxons.
The cathedral is a venerable and large pile: the tower in the middle and transept are of ancienter work than the choir and the body. Inigo Jones has erected a delicate screen of stone-work before the choir. Here was the burial-place of many Saxon and Norman kings, whose remains the impious soldiers in the civil wars threw against the painted glass: they show too the tomb of king Lucius. Queen Mary was here married to Philip of Spain: the chair used in that ceremony is still preserved. In the body of the church is a very ancient font, with odd sculptures round it. In the city is a pretty cross of Gothic workmanship, but ill repaired. Without the southern gate is a stately fabric, the college, erected and endowed by William of Wickham, bishop here, for education of youth. There is good painted glass of imagery in the chapel windows: in the middle of the cloysters is a strong stone building, the library, well contrived to prevent fire: the school is a more modern structure, handsome, with a very good statue of the founder over the door, made by Cibber. This country is intirely chalk, whence I suppose the name of Venta: the city is a genteel and pleasant place, and abounds with even the elegancies of life. Beyond the river eastward is a high hill, called St. Giles’s, from an hospital once there; now only some ruins of it to be seen, and a church-yard, seeming to have been a camp, beside the marks of bastions, and works of fortifications in the modern stile. Here Waltheof, earl of Northumberland and Huntingdon, was beheaded, by order of William I. whose body was carried to Crowland, and asserted to have miraculous virtues.
In digging the foundation of a house near the college, in a stone coffin was found a stone set in a gold ring, with this inscription in very old characters, supposed about the sixth century.
A mile to the south of Winchester is a magnificent hospital, called Holy Cross, founded by bishop Blois: the church is in the form of a cross, and has a large square tower. Over it, on the other side the river, hangs a camp upon St. Catharine’s hill, with a brachium reaching down to the water side, for convenience of that element. The way between Winchester and Southampton we perceived plainly to be a Roman road, especially as far as the chalk reached: then we came to a forest where the soil is gravelly all the way.
Southampton was strongly walled about with very large stones, full of those little white shells, like honey-combs, that grow upon the back of oysters: this is a sort of stone extremely hard, and seems to be gathered near the beach of the sea. These walls have many lunettes, and towers, in some places doubly ditched; but the sea encompasses near half the town: it was built in the time of king Edward III. I observe they have a method of breaking the force of the waves here, by laying a bank of sea-ore, as they call it: it is composed of long, slender, and strong filaments, like pilled hemp, very tough and durable; I suppose it is thrown up by the ocean: and this performs its work better than walls of stone, or natural cliff. At the south-east corner, near the quay, is a fort with some guns upon it, called the Tower: on one we saw this inscription,
In the north-west corner was a strong castle with a mount, walled about at top, as a keep: upon this a round stone tower, with a winding ascent: the Anabaptists are about pulling it down, to build a meeting-house. The main of this town consists of one broad street, running through its length: there are many old religious ruins, and great warehouses, cellars, store-houses, &c. but with their trade gone to decay. It was a great sea-port not long since, and had the sole privilege, by charter, of importing wine from France, till they foolishly sold it to the city of London.
The old Roman city stood more eastward, upon the banks of the river Itching coming from Winchester, where now is a hamlet called St. Mary’s. There is a handsome new churchTAB. LXXIX. built upon the ruins of an old one, which they say was burnt in some French wars: it is near the present ferry and opposite to Bittern. Many antiquities have been found upon the site of the old city. Likewise at Bittern was an old Roman castle, surrounded by a ditch, into which the sea-water flowed: many antiquities likewise have hence been produced, of which Mr. Camden gives us an account. Perhaps the buildings on both sides the river were comprehended under one name of Trausantum; therefore this river must have been the Antona: it was ruined in the Danish wars, and Southampton arose from its ashes. This is the place memorable for the famous experiment of king Canute, who sitting upon the banks of the river, crowned and in regal robes, commanded the tide not to approach his footstool; but the ocean, like an unlimited monarch, was as regardless of his menaces, as the Hellespont, of Xerxes his bridles and fetters.
Leaving this lesson of the perishing glory of monarchs and cities too, we journeyed to Portsmouth, an entertaining sight of the maritime majesty of Great Britain, in this point excelling the ancient Roman grandeur. Over a moory common we passed by Fareham, and by Portchester, a castle made out of a Roman city. We have little reason to doubt that this is the Portus Magnus.portus magnus of Ptolemy, as it deserves to be called, where a thousand sail of the biggest ships may ride secure: the mouth of it is not so broad, as the Thames at Westminster, and that secured by numerous forts; on Gosport side, TAB. LXXX.Charles fort, James fort, Borough fort, which name seems to intimate a Roman citadel formerly there; Blockhouse fort, which has a platform of above twenty great guns level with the water: and on the other side, by Portsmouth, Southsea castle, built by Henry VIII. of a like model with those I saw near Deal upon the Kentish shore.
Portsmouth is the most regular fortification, of the modern manner, which we have in England;TAB. LXXIX. a curious sight to those that have not been out of it. The government has bought more ground lately for additional works, and no doubt it is capable of being made impregnable; for a shallow water may be brought quite round it. Here is one of the greatest arsenals for the royal navy: above thirty men of war of the highest rates lie here, capable of being fitted out in less than a fortnight; among them, the Royal William, that can play off at once 120 battering-rams of brass, infinitely more forceable than that famous one Titus used against the walls of Jerusalem. The yards, the docks, the store-houses, where all their furniture is laid up in the exactest order, so that the men can go in the dark and fetch out any individual, is a sight beyond imagination. The immense quantities of cables, masts and tackle, of great guns, bullets, bombs, carcasses, mortars, granado’s, &c. these of all sorts and sizes, and the regular methods they are reposited in and distinguished by, are prodigious, and no where to be equalled but in England; for when I was informed that this place is outdone, in all the particulars, both at Chatham and Plymouth, there was no more room left for wonder. The Royal William’s mast is a noble piece of timber 124 foot long, and this is only the bottom part of the main mast; it is 36 inches diameter, clear timber: its lantern is like a summer-house: its great anchor and all accoutrements are equally astonishing. The rope-house is 870 foot long, one continued room, almost a quarter of a mile: we chanced to have the pleasure of seeing a great cable made here; it requires 100 men to work at it, and so hard the labour, that they can work but four hours in a day. The least complement of men continually employed in the yard is a thousand, and that but barely sufficient ordinarily to keep the naval affairs in good repair. But I have talked enough of matters so much out of my sphere. I was sorry to leave this amazing scene of naval grandeur, with the shocking sight of a wretched statue of king William, gilt indeed in an extraordinary manner; but of all the bad works in this fort, I have seen, it is the very last. From Portsmouth there is a fine prospect of the isle of Wight, famous for Vespasian’s first attempts in subduing the southern parts of Britain: its beautiful elevations, some woody, some downy, its towns, havens and white cliffs, at this distance, seem to persuade one it is an epitome of Great Britain, as that of the world; or that Nature made it as an essay, or copy, of her greater and more finished work. Before I leave Portsmouth I shall set down this catalogue of the British fleet as it stands this present year, given me by an officer; by which some people, fond of magnifying the mimic endeavours of some other powers, may calculate, if they please, when such will come up to rival it.
| Rates. | Guns. | No of each rate. | Complement of men to each. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st. | 100 |
7 |
780 |
| 2d. | 90 |
13 |
680 |
| 3d. | 80 |
16 |
520 |
70 |
24 |
440 |
|
——— |
|||
60 |
|||
——— |
|||
| 4th. | 60 |
18 |
365 |
50 |
46 |
280 |
|
——— |
|||
124 |
|||
——— |
|||
| 5th. | 40 |
24 |
190 |
30 |
4 |
155 |
|
——— |
|||
152 |
|||
——— |
|||
| 6th. | 20 |
27 |
130 |
——— |
——— |
||
179 |
3540 |
||
——— |
——— |
||
The whole complement of men 55720. |
|||
| Fire-ships | 3 |
||
| Bombs | 3 |
||
| Sloops | 13 |
||
| Yachts | 12 |
||
| Hoys | 11 |
||
| Smacks | 2 |
||
| Hulks | 7 |
||
| Store-ships | 1 |
||
| Hospital-ships | 1 |
||
——— |
|||
232 |
|||
I observed, the great quantity of water and ditches about this place is apt to render it aguish. The reader will excuse me from giving any description of the fortifications here, for the same reason that I did not offer to draw any thing; but passing by draw-bridges, bastions, gates, fosses, counterscarps, &c. we repeated our steps to the Ports-down hills, which are of chalk, and at a reasonable distance from the shore extend themselves into Sussex; leaving to the south a less elevated, woody, and rich country. Here we turned to admire the delightful view of the ground we had passed, and that we were going to: the ports, creeks, bays, the ocean, the castles fixt, and those moving on the water, the isle of Wight in its full extent, all lay before us, and under the eye, as in a map: Portchester, Gosport, which is a very considerable town, Portsmouth, Southampton, Chichester, and all the sea-coast from Portland isle to the TAB. LXXXII.Sussex coasts, were taken in at one ken. I took a little sketch of it in passing, in plate 82.
We found some of the Roman way upon this ridge, which I suppose went through Fareham and Havant, between Trausantum and Chichester, with a vicinal turning out to Portchester: it goes east and west. We passed by a large long barrow. We were led to Chichester by the fame of a most ancient inscription lately discovered there, whereof transcripts were handed about, that appeared not exact enough: this has revived the lustre of Chichester; for, though the termination of its name, and a Roman road called Stane-street coming to it, is evidence sufficient of its being a Roman city, yet none has positively affirmed it, because we have not hitherto been able to assign it a name. Mr. Camden satisfied himself that it owed its name and foundation to Cissa, the South-Saxon king. It is probable the city was destroyed soon after the Romans evacuated this kingdom, either in the wars between the Britons and first Saxons, or by the plundering Danes, who ravaged all the sea-coasts; so that its name was utterly forgot: but Cissa becoming master of this country, and there chusing to fix his seat, repaired the ancient castle or walls, whose vestigia were of too lasting materials wholly to have lost the appearance of their workmanship: then it was natural enough to prefix his name to this Roman termination, by which the Saxons always called castles of the Romans: or it might be simply called caster, chester, as was frequent in other places, till he restored it; and then it took his name, importing Cissa’s chester: but had it been originally founded by him, it would never have assumed that adjunct.
I doubt not but the walls of the present city are built upon the old Roman foundations chiefly. It is of a roundish form, the river running under part of the walls. Two principal streets cross it at right angles upon the cardinal points, where stands a curious cross erected by bishop Read. The church takes up one of these quadrants: it is remarkable for two side-ailes on both sides, and the pictures of all the kings and queens of England since Cissa, which are hung upon the wall of the southern transept; all the bishops on the opposite wall. Eastward of the cathedral is a place called the Pallant, which seems derived from the Latin palatium. In the middle of North-street was dug up this memorable inscription, which I have printed in plate 49. To your explication of it nothing can be added: the reader and myself will be obliged to you for the leave you have given me here to insert it. It was happy we took great care in transcribing the letters; for, since it has been in the possession of the duke of Richmond, I hear a workman, who pretended to set the fragments together, has defaced it.
THIS inscription, as curious as any that has yet been discovered in Britain, was found, the beginning of last April, at Chichester, in digging a cellar under the corner house of St. Martin’s lane, on the north side, as it comes into North-street. It lay about four foot under ground, with the face upwards: by which it had the misfortune to receive a great deal of damage from the picks of the labourers, as they endeavoured to raise it; for, besides the defacing of several letters, what was here disinterred of the stone was broke into four pieces: the other part of it, still wanting, is, in all probability, buried under the next house, 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 TEMPLVM to that end of it which is intire, and is not altogether three foot English, from the point mentioned: the breadth of it is 2 and ¾ of the same feet; the letters beautifully and exactly drawn; those in the two first lines three inches long, and the rest 2¼.
Being at Chichester in September last with Dr. Stukeley, we 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 in other copies that have been handed about of this inscription.
The only 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 SACRVM 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 any thing 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 DOMVS DIVINA, the same thing as DOMVS AVGVSTA, the imperial family; which I cannot say occurs, with any certainty of the time it was used in, before the reign of Antoninus Pius, from whom, down to Constantine the Great, it is very frequently met with in inscriptions. This kept me some time in suspence, whether this found at Chichester could be of so early a date as the time of Claudius: but as we find several inscriptions in Gruter with those words in them, or I. H. D. D. In Honorem Domus Divinæ, which is much the same thing, without any mark of the time when they were cut, they may have been before the reign of Antoninus 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 AVCTORITATE. TIB. CLAVD. and the fourth COGIDVBNI. R. LEG. &c. that is, Ex auctoritate Tiberii Claudii Cogidubni regis, legati Augusti in Britannia; for the following reasons: we are informed by Tacitus, in vita Agricolæ, cap. 14. that after Britain had been reduced to a Roman province by the successful arms of Aulus Plautius, and Ostorius Scapula, under the emperor Claudius, Quædam civitates Cogiduno Regi erant donatæ, is ad nostram usque memoriam fidissimus remansit, vetere ac jam pridem recepta Populi Romani consuetudine ut haberet instrumenta servitutis & Reges. This Cogidunus seems to be the same person as Cogidubnus in our inscription, the 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 well known to have been the custom of the Roman Liberti and Clientes, to take the names of their patrons and benefactors, 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 Dobuni which had submitted to Claudius, and one that continued many years faithful to him and the Romans, (vide Tacit. ut supra) had given him the government of some part of the island by that emperor, nothing could be more grateful in regard to Claudius, nor more honourable to himself, after he was romanised, than to take the names of a benefactor to whom he was indebted for his kingdom, and so call himself TIBERIVS CLAVDIVS COGIDVBNVS.
I suppose him to have been a Regulus of the Dobuni; because we are told by Dion Cassius (in lib. lx.) that Aulus Plautius having put to flight Cataratacus and Togodumnus, sons of Cunobelin, part of the Boduni (the same people as the Dobuni) who were subject to the Catuellani, submitted to the Romans; and the name Cogidubnus, or Cogiduvnus, Coc o Dubn, or Duvn, (vid. Baxteri Glossar. in verbis Cogidumnus, & Dobuni) signifying expresly in the British language PRINCEPS DOBVNORVM, seems to put the matter out of all doubt.
How far his territories extended, it is impossible to define. Bishop Stillingfleet, Orig. Britan. p. 63. supposes them to have lain in Surrey and Sussex. Sussex certainly was part of them, since the temple mentioned in this inscription was erected in it by his authority; and it is not unlikely, that besides the Regni, who were the people of those two counties, he might have that part of the Dobuni which had submitted to the Romans, and seems to have been his own principality, together with the Ancalites, Bibroci and Segontiaci, whose countries lay between the Dobuni and the Regni, bestowed upon him; the words civitates quædam, in Tacitus, not importing no more than some few towns, but several people; the word civitas always signifying a people in that historian.
Before I proceed any farther, it will not be amiss to observe, that Togodumnus and Cogidubnus, though their names are so much alike, were two distinct persons: the first was son of Cunobelin, king of the Trinobantes, vanquished and killed in battle by Aulus Plautius; the second, a prince that submitted to Ostorius Scapula, and continued in his fidelity to the Romans, in nostram usque memoriam, says Tacitus, who was born at the latter end of Claudius’s reign; so that Togodumnus was probably dead before Cogidubnus had his government conferred upon him.
I call it his government; for though, by the letter ·R· standing in the inscription with a point both before and after it, by which it plainly denotes an intire word of itself, it may seem that it was intended for COGIDVBNI REGIS, and I believe was so in respect of his quondam dignity, yet it is evident, that he had condescended to take the title of LEGATVS AVGVSTI IN BRITANNIA from Claudius: and that too must have been only over those people that he had given him the government of; Aulus Plautius, Ostorius Scapula, Didius Gallus, Avitus Veranius, and Suetonius Paullinus, having the supreme command successively about this time in this island, the second and last of which are called expresly Legati by Tacitus, lib. xii. Ann. cap. 23. & Vit. Agric. cap. 15. The Legati Cæsaris, or Augusti, were those qui Cæsaribus subditas regebant Provincias.
The sixth line has lost at the beginning the letters COLLE; but so much remains of the word, as makes it to have been indubitably, when intire, COLLEGIVM; and the following letters are an abbreviation of FABRORVM.
These colleges of artificers were very ancient at Rome, as ancient as their second king Numa Pompilius, if we may believe Plutarch (in vit. Numæ) who tells us, that the people were divided by him into what we at this day call Companies of Tradesmen, and mentions the Τέκτονες or Fabri among them; though Floras (lib. i. cap. 6.) says, that Populus Romanus a Servio Tullio relatus suit in Censum, digestus in Classes, Curiis atque Collegiis distributus. But as the power of the Romans extended itself, it carried the arts of that great people along with it, and improved the nations that it subdued, by civilizing, and teaching them the use of whatever was necessary or advantageous among their conquerors; from which most wise and generous disposition, among other beneficial institutions, we find these Collegia to have been established in every part of the empire, from the frequent mention of them in the inscriptions collected by Gruter, Spon, and other antiquaries.
Several sorts of workmen were included under the name of Fabri, particularly all those that were concerned in any kind of building; whence we meet with the Fabri Ferrarii, Lignarii, Tignarii, Materiarii, Navales, and others: the last named may have been the authors of dedicating this temple to Neptune, having so near a relation to the sea, from which the city of Chichester is at so small a distance, that perhaps that arm of it which still comes up within two miles of its walls, might formerly have washed them. The rest of the fraternity might very well pay the same devotion to Minerva, the Goddess of all arts and sciences, and patroness of the Dædalian profession.
As no less than five letters are wanting at the beginning of the sixth line, there cannot be fewer lost at the beginning of the seventh, where the stone is more broke away than above; so that probably there were six when it was perfect. What we have left of them is only the top of an S: I will not therefore take upon me to affirm any thing as to the reading of them, which is so intirely defaced: perhaps it was A. SACR. S. a sacris sunt; perhaps it was HONOR. S. Honorati sunt: as to the former, we find these Collegia had their Sacerdotes; therefore Qui a sacris sunt, which is found in inscriptions, (vid. Grut. Corp. xxix. 8. cxxi. i. dcxxxii. i.) would be no improper term to express them; or it might have been SACER. S. sacerdotes sunt, since we find such mentioned in the following inscriptions. Spon. Miscell. Erud. Antiq. p. 58.