GENIO PRÆTORI[I] SACRVM PI TVANIVS SE CVNDVS PRÆ FECTVS COH[ORTIS] IV GALLOR[VM]
To the genius of the Prætorium sacred; Pi- tuanius Se- cundus præ- fect of the fourth cohort of the Gauls, erects this.
Several other inscriptions by the fourth cohort of the Gauls have been found here since the time of Horsley.
The altar to Fortune, given in a previous page, shews us that at least a detachment of the sixth legion had, at some period, its abode here. |THE TWENTIETH LEGION.| A stone,
preserved at the place, and of which an engraving is here given, bears testimony to the presence of the twentieth legion also, which was surnamed V[ALENS] V[ICTRIX], ‘the valiant and victorious’, and of which the symbol was a boar. This legion was first sent over to Britain by Claudius, and remained in it until the island was abandoned by the Romans. Horsley conceives that this legion was concerned in the erection of the Vallum, though, he adds, we have no inscriptions to prove it. He suspects that it was no-way concerned in building the Wall, because, among all the centurial inscriptions which had come under his notice, not one mentioned this legion, or any cohort belonging to it. The discovery, since the publication of the Britannia Romana, of this and other memorials to be noticed as we proceed, renders
it probable that the twentieth legion was engaged upon both the Wall and the Vallum; and as, according to Horsley, ‘it is evident that this legion was at Chester in the year 154,’ where it long continued, the probability is strengthened, that the Wall, as well as the Vallum, was built before that period. A fragment of an inscription, represented above, bears direct reference to Hadrian. The Milking-gap slab, to which it has a very close resemblance, enables us to supply the parts that are wanting. The only difference seems to be, that the emperor’s name is in the dative case instead of the genitive as in the other example.
IMP CAES TRAIAN