Bidding farewell to these interesting structures, we may now bend our steps a short way down the river, on a visit to the cypress-grove—the burial ground of the station. This, which in Horsley’s days formed a separate field called the Ox-close, is now included in the park of the domain. Never was spot more appropriately chosen. The river here descends with more than usual rapidity over its stony bed, and bending at the same time to the left, exhibits to the eye the lengthened vista of its well-wooded banks. No earthly music could better soothe the chafed affections of the hopeless heathen mourner than the murmur of the stream which is ceaselessly heard in this secluded nook. From this spot have been procured several sepulchral slabs which will presently afford us instruction; meantime, one is given on the next page whose lesson is of a negative character. The blank memorial shews how vain are the efforts which even affection makes to render buoyant on the wave of time the memory of those departed. Our very monuments need memorials. But, passing this, the character of the carving betokens a poor state of the arts, and fixes its date in the lowest times of the empire: in this we have a proof of the long-continued occupation of the station. The fate of the stone has been singular. When Horsley saw it, the inscription was legible; but having since been used as the door-stone of the cow-house at Walwick Grange, the letters had, previous to its removal to Alnwick-castle (its present resting place), been entirely obliterated.
Between the station and the cemetery is a well enclosed with Roman masonry; it is now in a great measure filled up.
ITS NAME ASCERTAINED.
The station of Cilurnum, which is the sixth on the line of the Wall, was garrisoned by the second wing of the Astures, (a regiment of Spanish cavalry) commanded by a prefect. This fact has gradually developed itself to the antiquary. Camden thought it probable. Horsley concurred in the opinion, and, in the absence of better evidence, sagaciously referred to the tombstone of which a drawing is here presented, in proof of its having been occupied by a horse regiment. ‘That some horse,’ says he, 'kept garrison here in the lower empire, seems to be probable from the inscription and sculpture yet remaining at Walwick-grange.'[[90]] ‘The letters D. M.,’ he remarks in another place, ‘prove this to be a sepulchral monument, and the figure shews that the deceased belonged to the horse, and therefore probably was one of the Ala secunda Astorum, which in the lower empire kept garrison at Cilurnum, as the Notitia informs us.’
More decisive evidence has since been procured. The slab figured on page [61], is part of it. A still more satisfactory document of stone was discovered at Chesters several years ago, where it is still preserved: the wood-cut accurately portrays it.
IMP[ERATORI] CAES[ARI] MARCO AVREL[IO]
AUG[VSTO] . . . . . . . . . . . . PONTIFICI MAXIMO