Apart from the stations on the Antonine Wall and the fertile regions of the Lothians, no district of Scotland has been so fruitful in remains of Roman art and military skill as the country of the Selgovæ, and especially Birrens, the supposed Blatum Bulgium of Antoninus. To the materials for the Scoto-Roman history of this province I am fortunately able to make additions from various sources. The following tablet, thus oddly located in the Morton MS., belongs to the district of the Selgovæ,—"This inscription is in a house of Jockie Graham's in Eskdale, fixed in a wall, set up, as appears by the Legio Augusta Secunda, in memorial of the Emperor Hadrian;"

IMP · CÆS · TRA · HAD
RIANO · AVG ·
LEG II · AVG · F ·

The successor of Trajan, we know, visited our island soon after his accession to the purple, but he was hastily summoned away to quell an insurrection at another extremity of his unwieldy empire on the banks of the Nile, and was glad to abandon the line where Agricola had reared his forts for that finally adopted by Septimius Severus as the northern limit of imperial sway. Camden mentions an inscription, the counterpart of this, dug up at Netherby,[443] and Pennant describes another nearly similar, (possibly indeed the Eskdale tablet,) which he examined among the antiquities at Hoddam Castle, Dumfriesshire.[444] All the inscriptions, however, transcribed by the latter at Hoddam Castle, are understood, where not otherwise specified, to be from the neighbouring station of Birrens, in which case the Eskdale tablet forms an important addition to the traces of the Roman Emperor's presence in Scotland. It is curious that neither Pennant, nor Stuart in his more elaborate Caledonia Romana,[445] makes any comment on the singular discovery of a legionary dedication to the elder Emperor Hadrian, found thus far within the transmural province of Valentia. The legionary tablets of the Scottish Wall are its most interesting relics. Notwithstanding the very great number of altars and other Anglo-Roman inscriptions found along the line of the southern wall, only two or three have borne the name of either of the Emperors by whom it was erected, and none of them exactly correspond to the Scottish legionary stones. So rare indeed are memorials of Septimius Severus, even in the south, that Gordon characterizes the discovery by Roger Gale of one bearing the name of that Emperor, in the foundation of Hexham Church, Northumberland, as "a very precious jewel of antiquity."[446]

Leaving Eskdale for Annandale, we find ourselves within the interesting locality which includes both the stations of Birrens and Birrenswork Hill. Here have been discovered hypocausti, granaries, altars; a ruined temple, with the full figure, as is supposed, of the goddess Brigantia, inscribed with the name of AMANDUS the architect, who erected it in obedience to Imperial commands; the pedestal and torso of a colossal statue of the god Mercury; a mutilated statue of Fortune, the fruit of a vow in gratitude for restored health, performed by a Prefect of one of the Tungrian cohorts; a sepulchral tablet, dedicated by her mother to the shade of Pervica, a Roman maiden who faded under our bleak northern skies; with numerous other evidences of an important Roman colonia. A few of the Birrens inscriptions and other antiquities belong to the earlier years of the Roman presence in Scotland, but the greater number appear to be clearly referrible to the later era of the province of Valentia, subsequent to the retreat of the Emperor Septimius Severus. This is proved by the debased style of art which stamps nearly all the provincial Roman works of the third and fourth centuries. Confining any detailed accounts, however, to such relics as have not been previously described: in 1810 a beautiful altar, dedicated to Minerva, was dug up at Birrens by Mr. Clow of Laud, and is described in Mr. W. S. Irvine's MS. as serving (in 1815) as the pedestal to a sun-dial in the garden of George Irving, Esq., at his seat of Burnfoot, near Ecclefechan. It measures fifty inches in height by twenty-two inches in breadth, and about nine inches in thickness, the back being as usual roughly cut for standing against the wall. It presents an unusual display of ornament, being decorated with vine leaves, birds, fishes, and various architectural details. The inscription, which is in the highest state of preservation, is—

DEAE
MINERVAE
COH II TVN
GRORVM
MIL EQ C L
CVI PRÆEST CS L
AVSPEX PRÆF

which may be rendered: DEÆ MINERVÆ, COHORTIS SECUNDÆ TUNGRORUM, MILITIA EQUESTRIS CONSTANTINI LEGIONIS, CUI PRÆEST CAIUS LUCIUS AUSPEX PRÆFECTUS. This altar remained a few years since, and I believe still exists, as here described. But it is no solitary addition to the relics of this second cohort of the Tungrians, whose memorials are even more abundant than those of the Second Legion, Augusta, on the wall of Antoninus. The Tungrians were among the first Roman legions to enter Scotland, and appear to have been long stationed at Blatum Bulgium. It was indeed to two Tungrian and three Batavian cohorts that Agricola was principally indebted for his victory over Galgacus. The valuable collection of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharp, Esq., includes three other altars, found about the year 1812 at Birrens, all of them the fruits of pious vows by the same Tungrian cohort. The largest of these is a beautiful altar, in the very finest state of preservation, of which the woodcut conveys a good idea. It measures fifty-five and a half inches in height by thirty inches in greatest breadth at top, and twenty and a quarter inches across the inscribed front. The inscription may be thus rendered: MARTI ET VICTORIÆ AUGUSTÆ CENTURIÆ TIRONUM MILITUM IN COHORTE SECUNDA TUNGRORUM, CUI PRÆEST SILVIUS AUSPEX, PRÆFECTUS. VOTUM SOLVERUNT LUBENTES MERITO.

The second of these altars found at Birrens is a small but neat one, measuring thirty-six inches high, by fourteen and five-eighth inches in greatest breadth, thus inscribed:—

DIB · DE
AB · Q
OMNB
FRVMENT
IVS MIL COH II
TVNGR ·