SECTION XII.
STAMP NO. XI.—FOUND AT CIRENCESTER.
In the beautiful work on the Roman remains of Cirencester, published last year by Professor Buckman and Mr. Newmarch, a Roman medicine-stamp is described.[567] It was found, in 1818, in the Leauses garden at Cirencester, deposited in a fictile urn.
This stamp is of the form of a parallelogram, and is inscribed on two of its sides. Plate III., No. XI., shows the lettering of these two inscriptions, as well as the size of the sides, and the rude cross-markings that appear on the two ends of the stone. The inscriptions are as follow:—
1. MINERVALIS DIALEB
ANUM AD IMPT LIPP EX OVO
2. MINERVALIS MELINU
AD OMNEM DOLOREM
Messrs. Buckman and Newmarch read MINERVALIS as signifying “pertaining to Minerva;” but it is no doubt the name, as in other specimens, of the oculist who was the proprietor of the stamp. And from the inscriptions left us upon Roman tombs, we know that Minervalis was a Roman cognomen.[568]
The two inscriptions are easily read; they are as follow:—
1. MINERVALIS DIALEBANUM AD IMPETum LIPPitudinis EX OVO.—Minervalis' frankincense Collyrium for attacks of Ophthalmy; to be used with an egg.
We have already had occasion to discuss the nature of the Collyrium Dialibanum (p. 269), and it is unnecessary to recur to it. On a previous occasion, also (p. 284), the signification of the common expression, ex ovo, was adverted to.
2. MINERVALIS MELINUm AD OMNEM DOLOREM.—Minervalis' yellow Collyrium for every pain or disease of the eye.
More than once we have had occasion to allude to the Collyrium Melinum (pp. 250, 257). The only singularity in the present instance is, that we have here the Melinum offered as a panacea for every painful affection to which the eyes of the colonists and natives of Cirencester might be subject, at the time that Minervalis practised amongst them. One of the forms of the Collyrium Melinum given by Galen is professed by him to be efficacious “ad omnem oculorum hebetudinem.”—(Kühn’s edit. vol. xii. p. 786.)