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New Readings of a Severan Inscription from Nicopolis, Near Alexandria
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
The inscription here discussed was found at Nicopolis near Alexandria on 24th May, 1801, while a British force was besieging the French garrison. It was first published, but only partially, by Captain Walsh, aide-de-camp to Major-General Sir Eyre Coote; and the latter took it to England and set it up in the hall of West Park, his country mansion near Fordingbridge in Hampshire. There was a diagonal fracture across the last line, and so the workman concerned sawed off the jagged bottom of the stone and thus removed half a line of text.
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- Copyright © R. P. Wright 1942. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
References
2 Walsh, Thomas, Journal of the late Campaign in Egypt (London: ed. I, 1803), pl. 28Google Scholar.
3 Vol. v, p. 3, no. 10; cf. p. 206.
4 Ibid. pp. 259–262.
5 CIL iii, suppl. 6580; see ILS 2304.
6 xii (1883), 292–6.
7 Academy, 29th August, 1891, p. 181.
8 Written to William Remington, Banker, of 69 Lombard Street, London. Its author commanded the artillery at the sieges of Aboukir and Marabout and before Alexandria; in 1830 he was promoted Lieut.-General and died in 1835. His grandson, Mr. Hugh Cookson, of the Wendy House, Woodland Rise, Sevenoaks, Kent, consulted Dr. Gordon Ward and let him take a photostat copy for submission to Mr. R. G. Collingwood.
9 Found by Master A. J. Penrose, at Bradenham Hall. Two parts of it were handed to Mr. Thomas Wake, of the Castle Museum, Norwich, who kindly sent them for examination, and later provided local details about Bradenham Hall. The connection with West Park would seem to be as follows : Lord Nelson's grandfather was rector of Bradenham parish from 1720, and one of his daughters married a James Smyth, who built Bradenham Hall. Smyth's son inherited the property and between 1800 and 1805 Susannah, the eldest sister of Nelson, and her husband, Mr. Thomas Boulton, lived at the Hall, and again in 1813. As Nelson and Sir Eyre Coote both took a prominent part in campaigns in Egypt, it is quite probable that their families were on terms of friendship. In this way a member of the Nelson family might see the marble fragment lying about at West Park and ask to have it as a curiosity, and so take it to Bradenham Hall.
10 On the sale of the West Park estate in 1941 the stone was moved to Damerham Vicarage near by, for temporary storage by the Rev. H. W. Moule.
11 Pointed out by Mr. I. A. Richmond, and kindly confirmed by Dr. A. Raistrick.
12 Some of the T's have a very short cross-bar, while the P's have a large serif at the foot. In 1. 26, dexter side, the large serif combined with the absence of loop makes POL look like LOL. The centurial signs sometimes encroach on the next line and in one case, 1. 29, sinister side, the L of POL is omitted for this reason. Cookson gives a close rendering of these differences and so sometimes appears to read CASIRIS instead of CASTRIS. These minor variations have been omitted in the apparatus criticus, as well as those additions made by Wolfe which agree with Cookson.
13 Names are abbreviated thus: C: Cookson, H: Haverfield, Wo: Wolfe, Wr: Wright, Letters partly missing, but certain, are marked by subscript dots.
14 The following alterations may be made to the names of the centurions listed by Ritterling, P-W s.v. ‘Legio’, 1491–2: for Cohort II: ]ionius instead of ]onius Lucianus, and add Attidius; cohort III [istius instead of ]stius Maero, and for Natalis read Vitalis; cohort IIII: add Gaurius The evidence provided by the stone for the domicile of recruits has already been discussed: see G. L. Cheesman, The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army 80; H. M. D Parker, The Roman Legions 183.
16 Digest 50, 6, 8: ‘immunitates generaliter tributae eo iure, ut ad posteros transmitterentur, in perpetuum succedentibus durant.’