The palæographic characters of the inscription scarcely require any comment. As in most other Roman and Romano-British inscriptions, the words run into each other without any intervening space to mark their separation. The letters all consist of debased Roman capitals. They generally vary from two and a half to three inches in length; but the O in the first line is only one and a half inch deep. The O in TVMVLO in these ancient inscriptions is often, as in the Cat-stane, smaller than the other letters. M. Edmond Le Blant gives numerous marked instances of this peculiarity of the small O in the same words, "IN HoC TVMVLo," in his work on the early Romano-Gaulish inscriptions of France.[143] Most of the letters in the Cat-stane inscription are pretty well formed, and firmly though rudely cut. The oblique direction of the bottom stroke of L in TVMVLO is a form of that letter often observable in other old Romano-British inscriptions, as on the stone at Llanfaglan in Wales. The M in the same word has its first and last strokes splaying outwardly; a peculiarity seen in many old Roman and Romano-British monuments—as is also the tying together of this letter with the following V. In the Romano-British inscription upon the stone found at Yarrow, and which was brought under the notice of the Society by Dr. John Alexander Smith, there are three interments, as it were, recorded, the last of them in these words;[144]
... HIC IACENT
IN TVMVLO DVO FILI
LIBERALI.
The letters on this Yarrow stone are—with one doubtful exception[145]—Roman capitals, of a ruder, and hence perhaps later, type than those cut on the Cat-stane; but the letters MV in TVMVLO are tied together in exactly the same way on the two stones. The omission of the aspirate in (H)OC, as seen on the Cat-stane, is by no means rare. The so-called bilingual, or Latin and Ogham, inscribed stone at Llanfechan, Wales, has upon it the Latin legend TRENACATVS IC JACET FILIVS MAGLAGNI—the aspirate being wanting in the word HIC. It is wanting also in the same way, and in the same word, in the inscription on the Maen Madoc stone, near Ystradfellte—viz., DERVACI FILIVS IVLII IC IACIT; and on the Turpillian stone near Crickhowel. In a stone, described by Mr. Westwood, and placed on the road from Brecon to Merthyr, the initial aspirate in "hoc" is not entirely dropped, but is cut in an uncial form, while all the other letters are Roman capitals; thus IN hOC TVMULO.
Linear hyphen-like stops, such as Lhwyd represents at the end of the fourth, and probably also of the third line on the Cat-stane inscription, seem not to be very rare. In the remarkable inscription on the Caerwys stone, now placed at Downing Whitford, "Here lies a good and noble woman"—[146]
HIC JACIT / MVLI
ER BONA NOBILI(S)
an oblique linear point appears in the middle of the legend, after the word JACIT. The linear stop on the Cat-stane inscription, at the end of the fourth line, is, as already stated, fully an inch in length, but it is scarcely so deep as the cuts forming the letters; and the original surface of the stone at both ends of this terminal linear stop is very perfect and sound, showing that the line was not extended either upwards or downwards into any form of letter. Straight or hyphen lines, at the end both of words—especially of the proper names—and of the whole inscriptions, have been found on various Romano-British stones, as on those of Margan (the Naen Llythyrog), Stackpole, and Clydau, and have been supposed to be the letter I, placed horizontally, while all the other letters in these inscriptions are placed perpendicularly. Is it not more probable that they are merely points? Or do they not sometimes, like tied letters, represent both an I and a stop?
Who is Commemorated in the Cat-stane Inscription?
In the account which Mr. George Chalmers gives of the Antiquities of Linlithgowshire in his Caledonia, there is no notice of the inscription on the Cat-stane taken; but, with a degree of vagueness of which this author is seldom guilty, he remarks, that this monolith "is certainly a memorial of some conflict and of some person."[147]
Is it not possible, however, to obtain a more definite idea of the person who is named on the stone, and in commemoration of whom it was raised?
In the extracts that have been already given, it has been suggested, by different writers whom I have cited, that the Cat-stane commemorates a Scottish king, Constantine IV., or a Pictish king, Geth. Let us first examine into the probability of these two suggestions.