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The Ravenscar Inscription
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 November 2011
Extract
The Ravenscar inscription (C.I.L. vii, 268 = E.E. ix, 561), found in 1774 on what may be presumed to have been a Yorkshire ‘signal-station’ site, and now in Whitby Museum, needs no lengthy introduction. Its importance was recognized by Huebner and Mommsen, and it has been discussed by Haverfield, who published a good photograph, and by Collingwood, who included a line-drawing of it in his Archaeology of Roman Britain. Despite its importance as one of the latest epigraphic documents of Roman Britain, and the attention it has therefore received, its exact meaning has remained far from clear, the uncertainty resting largely in the third line. Most recently, Mr. C. E. Stevens has re-examined the text in an appendix to his article on the British sections of the Notitia Dignitatum.
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1952
References
page 185 note 1 For the circumstances of the discovery see Clark, Kitson, Gazetteer of Roman Remains in E. Yorks, 122Google Scholar.
page 185 note 2 J.R.S. ii (1912), 210 and fig. 31Google Scholar. The photograph (pi. xxxm) here reproduced has been kindly supplied by Mr. R. H. Hayes. For the forms of the last two letters of 1. 3 it should be compared with Haverfield's, taken in a different light.
page 185 note 3 Collingwood, R. G., Archaeology of Roman Britain, 171 and fig. 44bGoogle Scholar; cf. J.R.S. xii (1922) 79Google Scholar.
page 185 note 4 Arch. Journ. xcvii (1941), 151–4Google Scholar.
page 186 note 1 C.I.L. v (Addit.), 8724-8777 and 8988cGoogle Scholar; Notizie degli Scavi, 1887, 261, 305, 339; 1890, 169, 339Google Scholar; 1892, 5, 335; and 1893, 222. For the discovery of the cemetery see Bull. 1st. 1873, 58–63Google Scholar; 1874, 18-57; 1875, 104-25: there has been no definitive publication. The inscriptions are all in the Museo Nazionale at Portogruaro.
page 186 note 2 The great majority of ranks attested at Concordia are regimental, and include the following: Tribunus, Ducenarius, Centenarius, Biarcus, Semissalis, Campeductor, Domesticus, and Magister. There are also some graves of military personnel attached to the Fabrica Sagittaria. The units are all numerl, of both cavalry and infantry.
page 186 note 3 Jerome, , Ad Pammachlum, i. 19Google Scholar.
page 186 note 4 Grosse, R., ‘Die Rangordnung der römischen Armee des 4-6 Jahrhunderts’, Klio, xv (1918), 14Google Scholar.
page 186 note 5 It is difficult to see why Hirschfeld (C.I.L. xiii. 8262)Google Scholar should have proposed magister pr(ivatae) in a context so clearly military.
page 186 note 6 Numerous instances occur in the inscriptions from the interior of Tripolitania which are published in Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania edited by Reynolds, J. M. and Perkins, J. B. Ward, and published by the British School at RomeGoogle Scholar.
187 note 1 , El-Guecirat: C.I.L. viii. 22774Google Scholar; Tarhuna, : Inscr. Rom. Trip. 876Google Scholar.
page 187 note 2 Ruggiero, E. De, Dizionario Epigrafico, ii (1900), 136, s.v.‘Castra’Google Scholar.
page 187 note 3 Cagnat, , Cours d'tpigraphie latine (1914), 267Google Scholar, instancing C.I.L. vii. 445—A solo instruere (Balneurri). It must be admitted, however, that the reading of the final line on the Ravenscar stone is uncertain.
page 188 note 1 I am inclined to doubt whether the Notitia Dignitatem gives a complete picture of the British defensive system in the late fourth or early fifth century. There may well have been a zonal system, as in parts of Africa, in addition to the regimental establishment listed in the Notitia.
page 188 note 2 The suggestion was first made by the late Sir Evans, Arthur in Num. Chron. 1887, 208Google Scholar. Haverfield, , in J.R.S. ii (1912), 212Google Scholar, n.l, lists the ancient sources. Cf. Collingwood, in J.R.S. xii (1922), 79Google Scholar.
page 188 note 3 The coin evidence is excellently summarized by Craster, H. H. E. in Arch. Journ. lxxxix (1932), 251–3Google Scholar. It seems possible, however, that the initial occupation of the signal-stations could be nearer A.D. 375.