The Roman Wall / A historical, topographical, and descriptive account of the barrier of the lower isthmus, extending from the Tyne to the Solway, deduced from numerous personal surveys

by J. Collingwood Bruce

Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.

Jam redit et Virgo.

INSCRIPTION TO THE SYRIAN GODDESS.

A slab was found at Carvoran in 1816, and is now in the castle of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which contains an exposition in iambic verse of the creed of a Roman tribune respecting the mother of the gods. Faber remarks, that Ceres, Cybele, Venus, the Syrian goddess Derceto, the Phœnician Astarte, and the Egyptian Isis, were all one and the same deity. The inscription, which is an unusually long one, is here arranged in lines of the length which the scansion requires—

IMMINET LEONI VIRGO CÆLESTI SITU

SPICIFERA, JUSTI INVENTRIX, URBIUM CONDITRIX,

EX QUIS MUNERIBUS NOSSE CONTIGIT DEOS

ERGO EADEM MATER DIVUM, PAX, VIRTUS, CERES,

DEA SYRIA; LANCE VITAM ET JURA PENSITANS.