THIS inscription, as curious as any that has yet been discovered in Britain, was found, the beginning of last April, at Chichester, in digging a cellar under the corner house of St. Martin’s lane, on the north side, as it comes into North-street. It lay about four foot under ground, with the face upwards: by which it had the misfortune to receive a great deal of damage from the picks of the labourers, as they endeavoured to raise it; for, besides the defacing of several letters, what was here disinterred of the stone was broke into four pieces: the other part of it, still wanting, is, in all probability, buried under the next house, and will not be brought to light till that happens to be rebuilt. The inscription is cut upon a grey Sussex marble, the length of which was six Roman feet, as may be conjectured by measuring it from the middle of the word TEMPLVM to that end of it which is intire, and is not altogether three foot English, from the point mentioned: the breadth of it is 2 and ¾ of the same feet; the letters beautifully and exactly drawn; those in the two first lines three inches long, and the rest 2¼.
Being at Chichester in September last with Dr. Stukeley, we took an accurate view of this marble, which is now fixed in the wall under a window within the house where it was found; and, that we might be as sure of the true reading as possible, wherever the letters were defaced, we impressed a paper with a wet sponge into them, and by that means found those in the fifth line to have been as we have expressed them above, and not as in other copies that have been handed about of this inscription.
The only letter wanting in the first line is an N before EPTVNO, and so no difficulty in reading that. As to the second, though it was more usual, in inscriptions of this nature, to express the donation by the word SACRVM only, referring to the temple, or altar, dedicated; yet we have so many instances, in Gruter’s Corpus Inscriptionum, of TEMPLVM and ARAM also cut on the stones, that there is not the least occasion to say any thing farther upon that point.
The third line can be no other way filled up, than as I have done it by the pricked letters: I must own, however, that I have had some scruple about the phrase of DOMVS DIVINA, the same thing as DOMVS AVGVSTA, the imperial family; which I cannot say occurs, with any certainty of the time it was used in, before the reign of Antoninus Pius, from whom, down to Constantine the Great, it is very frequently met with in inscriptions. This kept me some time in suspence, whether this found at Chichester could be of so early a date as the time of Claudius: but as we find several inscriptions in Gruter with those words in them, or I. H. D. D. In Honorem Domus Divinæ, which is much the same thing, without any mark of the time when they were cut, they may have been before the reign of Antoninus Pius, and then only came into more general use; and as the time that Cogidunus lived in, will not let this be of a later standing, I think we may offer it as an authority for the use of this piece of flattery to the emperors long before that excellent prince came to the purple.
The third line, as I believe, was EX AVCTORITATE. TIB. CLAVD. and the fourth COGIDVBNI. R. LEG. &c. that is, Ex auctoritate Tiberii Claudii Cogidubni regis, legati Augusti in Britannia; for the following reasons: we are informed by Tacitus, in vita Agricolæ, cap. 14. that after Britain had been reduced to a Roman province by the successful arms of Aulus Plautius, and Ostorius Scapula, under the emperor Claudius, Quædam civitates Cogiduno Regi erant donatæ, is ad nostram usque memoriam fidissimus remansit, vetere ac jam pridem recepta Populi Romani consuetudine ut haberet instrumenta servitutis & Reges. This Cogidunus seems to be the same person as Cogidubnus in our inscription, the letter B in the third syllable making little or no difference in the word, especially if pronounced soft, as it ought to be, like a V consonant.
It is so well known to have been the custom of the Roman Liberti and Clientes, to take the names of their patrons and benefactors, it would be wasting of time to prove the constant usage of that practice. Now, as this Cogidubnus, who in all probability was a petty prince of that part of the Dobuni which had submitted to Claudius, and one that continued many years faithful to him and the Romans, (vide Tacit. ut supra) had given him the government of some part of the island by that emperor, nothing could be more grateful in regard to Claudius, nor more honourable to himself, after he was romanised, than to take the names of a benefactor to whom he was indebted for his kingdom, and so call himself TIBERIVS CLAVDIVS COGIDVBNVS.
I suppose him to have been a Regulus of the Dobuni; because we are told by Dion Cassius (in lib. lx.) that Aulus Plautius having put to flight Cataratacus and Togodumnus, sons of Cunobelin, part of the Boduni (the same people as the Dobuni) who were subject to the Catuellani, submitted to the Romans; and the name Cogidubnus, or Cogiduvnus, Coc o Dubn, or Duvn, (vid. Baxteri Glossar. in verbis Cogidumnus, & Dobuni) signifying expresly in the British language PRINCEPS DOBVNORVM, seems to put the matter out of all doubt.
How far his territories extended, it is impossible to define. Bishop Stillingfleet, Orig. Britan. p. 63. supposes them to have lain in Surrey and Sussex. Sussex certainly was part of them, since the temple mentioned in this inscription was erected in it by his authority; and it is not unlikely, that besides the Regni, who were the people of those two counties, he might have that part of the Dobuni which had submitted to the Romans, and seems to have been his own principality, together with the Ancalites, Bibroci and Segontiaci, whose countries lay between the Dobuni and the Regni, bestowed upon him; the words civitates quædam, in Tacitus, not importing no more than some few towns, but several people; the word civitas always signifying a people in that historian.
Before I proceed any farther, it will not be amiss to observe, that Togodumnus and Cogidubnus, though their names are so much alike, were two distinct persons: the first was son of Cunobelin, king of the Trinobantes, vanquished and killed in battle by Aulus Plautius; the second, a prince that submitted to Ostorius Scapula, and continued in his fidelity to the Romans, in nostram usque memoriam, says Tacitus, who was born at the latter end of Claudius’s reign; so that Togodumnus was probably dead before Cogidubnus had his government conferred upon him.
I call it his government; for though, by the letter ·R· standing in the inscription with a point both before and after it, by which it plainly denotes an intire word of itself, it may seem that it was intended for COGIDVBNI REGIS, and I believe was so in respect of his quondam dignity, yet it is evident, that he had condescended to take the title of LEGATVS AVGVSTI IN BRITANNIA from Claudius: and that too must have been only over those people that he had given him the government of; Aulus Plautius, Ostorius Scapula, Didius Gallus, Avitus Veranius, and Suetonius Paullinus, having the supreme command successively about this time in this island, the second and last of which are called expresly Legati by Tacitus, lib. xii. Ann. cap. 23. & Vit. Agric. cap. 15. The Legati Cæsaris, or Augusti, were those qui Cæsaribus subditas regebant Provincias.