SECTION IX.
STAMP NO. VIII.—FOUND AT SOUTHWELL.
An anonymous correspondent, C. D., sent to the Gentleman’s Magazine, in 1772, a sketch and notice of what, no doubt, is a Roman medicine-stamp, but both the sketch given of it and the description are excessively meagre. The correspondent dates his letter from Southwell, in Nottinghamshire. He says, “The inscribed stone was found lately by casting up the ground, in the neighbourhood of Littleborough in this county. The stone is oblong, about two inches long, and one broad. It contains inscriptions on the edges or rim of the two ends, and on one of its oblong sides, but not on the other.”
“It is,” says the correspondent, “supposed to be a Tessera or kind of tally, such being, as we are told, a little flat square piece of stone, and having a particular inscription, and was used in the Roman armies, by being on certain occasions delivered to each of the soldiers, to distinguish them from the enemy, and also in setting their nightly guard, by being given from one centurion to another, quite through the army, till it returned to the tribune who first delivered it. Upon the receipt of this, the guard was set immediately. But,” he continues, “as the inscription on the above drawing cannot be made out to satisfaction, many of you will be glad to know whether it has been such a Tessera as is above supposed; or what else it may have been, or also an explanation of its legend, by some of your antiquarian correspondents.”
The inscription on one of the long sides of the stone appears to be the name of the proprietor of the stamp; but the published copy of it presents such irregular lettering, as to defy any certain deciphering of what the name is. (See Plate III., No. VIII.) On the other two sides the inscriptions are as follow:—
1. B. DIASORICV.
2. STATVS.
These two words evidently are mis-spellings, either on the original stamp, or (what is equally probable) in its published copy, for the Collyria termed Diapsoricum and Stactum. But I have already, in reference to previous inscriptions, discussed the signification of these two terms at such length as not to require to revert to them. (See under Stamps No. IV. and No. VIII.)
The initial B, as it stands in the first line, seems to defy all kinds of conjecture in regard to its signification. In this, as in one or two other instances, the only hope of obtaining a true reading of the legend is in the re-discovery of the stamp itself.