planned out via the Aber Gorge. It has been examined in two places without bringing to light any rubble or stone foundation, as was placed on the Rhiwiau track when traffic arose later on. But there is some insistance on that course by investigators, and it is to that view we may attribute the legend given currency to -that the two milestones which have been described were removed from the mountain road and rolled down the Rhiwiau (1). Every possible enquiry has been made as to this, but with no confirmation, and the depth to which they were eaten up by growth of vegetable mould controverts the legend.

Allusion has been made to Sir John Gwynne of Gwedir's (sic) An Ancient Survey of Pen maen mawr, and it is a temptation to quote the following extract from it :—“ Ytt is greate pitty that our Brittishe Histories are soe ymbeseled that we have noe certteynte for theese thinges, but must onely rely uppon tradicion.' What Sir John Wynn, as he is best known now, thought in Charles I's time, assuredly we also have reason to do. His remark refers to the tradition of "A greate battayle fought betweene the Romaynes and the Brittaynes where the Romanes were overthrowne, and a greate slaughter of both sydes."

There is no historical record of such an episode, as also is there none as to what opposition either Suetonius or Agricola met with in their expeditions, the course of which it has been attempted to trace. But one may take it that the erection of Kanovium and Segontium camps, and the fort at Tomen y Mur-not to speak of Hen Ddinbych, very possibly from its design also a Roman fort, though of small size, indicate that it was not altogether "plain sailing" with the Romans during the earlier years of their occupation of North Wales. What, again, was the occasion for so many British camps on hill tops? The matter is sub judice so to speak; but it points to strong opposition from the first, and may have been the cause of the construction of many of the roads that have yet to be

dealt with. Further notes will be given as soon as many points that have cropped up have been investigated. In the meantime Mr. Harold Hughes, of Bangor, has kindly undertaken to report on the road from about Aber to Segontium; Mr. Charles Breeze, of Port Madoc, on that from Tomen y Mur to Segontium ; and the Rev. Thomas Roberts, late R.N., the track from Kanovium to Tomen y Mur. These routes have been but imperfectly done already, many valuable confirmations having been omitted through lack of enquiry and observation.

Permission has been given by the Denbighshire Roads Committee to make sections of the roads from Llangerniew to Llansannan, to Bylchau and Denbigh, also by private owners of Ffordd Las, where it may now be mentioned an important stone has been discovered by Mr. Willoughby Gardner, that may perchance be an erratic boulder brought to the spot and placed in lieu of a cylindrical or quadrangular milestone, as was done in other parts of Great Britain.

EDITORIAL NOTE.-The stone is in the basement of the British Museum, cylindrical, similar to that of the Emperor Hadrian, figured in the April number, a fragment only, 2 ft. long. The inscription is in bold lettering arranged in five lines, the letters of the first line measuring 3 in., the remainder varying from 2 in. to 3 in. The last line is not easy to decipher, part of it having been purposely defaced. The squeeze kindly lent by Mr. Willoughby Gardner has been carefully compared with the original, and the reading verified. The exact date is not difficult to determine.

The inscription commemorates two, if not three Caesars.

1. Lucius Septimius Severus, who also assumed among his titles the name 66 Pertinax," as the avenger of his predecessor's murder, came, after serving in Gallia Lugdunensis and Parthia, into Britain. early in A.D. 208, and died at York in 211.

2. Severus had two sons, Bassianus (born at Lyons, A.D. 188) and Publius Geta (born A.D. 189). The elder son's name was changed to Marcus Aurelius, as on the milestone (at the time that Severus declared himself the adopted offspring of Marcus Aurelius), and this designation the elder son retained. But he had also a nickname, Caracalla (never used on medals or in official records), from a greatcoat with hood, which he adopted as his favourite dress and intro

duced into the army. In 198, at the age of 10, he was created "Augustus." Hence on the milestone the plural form AVGG.

3. The younger brother, P. Geta, accompanied his father and brother to Britain, and also received the title of Augustus in 209, being thus formally recognised as joint heir to the imperial throne. His name was inscribed on this milestone with those of his father and elder brother, but it has been erased. After Severus' death in 211, the brothers retired to Rome. On the journey Aurelius, in his jealousy, made several ineffectual attempts to assassinate Geta. Geta, at last, was put to death towards the end of February, 212, and Aurelius, whose ferocious temper rendered him the scourge of the Empire, ordered all Geta's statues to be broken, and all inscriptions in his honour to be erased. This has evidently been done to the milestone figured here. The last line of the inscription, which would have been, in full, AVGG. ET. P. SEP. (for Publius Septimius Geta), ends with P and an indistinct s.

Aurelius was, himself, assassinated, 8th April, 217.

The date of the milestone will be 209-210.

In Arch. Camb., 1847, p. 51 (referred to in 1846, pp. 419, 420), mention is made of a stone found in 1820 inscribed

NVMC ..
......

IMP. CAESAR. M

AVREL. ANTONINVS

PIVS. TI. IX. AVG. ARAB.
IX.

which is said to have been found near Ty coch, near a farm house called Caerhun. This Caerhun (Professor Haverfield observes) is a place so called in Bangor parish, a couple of miles south of Bangor town. EDITOR, Arch. Camb.

Reviews and Notices of Books.

LIBER LUCIANI DE LAUDE CESTRIE. Transcribed and Edited by M. V. TAYLOR, M.A. (Dubl.). Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire.

In this volume, the sixty-fourth of the valuable series of Original Documents, the Record Society publishes what is claimed to be "the earliest-known example of a local guide, and also the earliest-known account of Chester."

Miss Taylor, who is responsible for the transcription of the manuscript, in a careful and scholarly introduction, gives its history as far as known. The MS., entitled De Laude Cestrie, was presented, with others, to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, in 1601, by Thomas Allen, D.D., a friend of Sir T. Bodley, Camden, Cotton, Selden, and other kindred spirits. Like them, he was an enthusiastic collector of MSS., not without the collector's well-known failing. The editor suggests that the work in question formed part of the monastic library of St. Werburgh's Abbey, Chester, and passed at the Dissolution in 1540 into other hands. In correction of this suggestion the fact that the work was apparently unknown to and unnoticed by Ranulph Higden would seem to point to its disposal elsewhere, at least in Higden's time.

From internal evidence, the date may be fixed as c. 1195. The author styles himself Lucianus, a name taken, according to Mr. Madan, from the Saint on whose day, January 8th, the writer may have professed. He was probably Sub-prior of the Abbey, but though enthusiastic in his praises of the ancient City, he was not a native of Chester. Miss Taylor, in one section of her excellent introduction, mentions as amongst the chief features of the work the frequent use of alliteration, allegory, and metaphor; a number of impossible derivations, and a grouping of facts and illustrations in threes after the manner of the Triads. The author devotes several pages to the respective duties of the three officers or leaders of the Abbey. They are compared to the "Trinity"; the Prior and the Sub-prior resemble Aaron and Hur, who held up the arms of Moses, i.e., the Abbot. "Cestria" is "Cis tria," and means three divisions, having a learned bishop, an open-hearted archdeacon, an enlightened band of clerks. Cestria has three sources of food supply, Ireland, Wales, and England; Hibernus adornat eam cum piscibus, Britannus apportat carnes et copiam pecoris, Anglus effundit sacculos segetis. It has beneath its walls a beautiful river abounding in fish, with a harbour where ships from Aquitaine, Spain, Ireland and Germany unlade their cargoes of wine and other merchandise. There are two straight streets which cross in the

centre and make four, each having its origin in a gate, and thus symbolical of the Cross and the Four Evangelists. A good many pages are occupied with sermons on God's goodness and favour to the City, the Blessed Virgin and the various Saints to whose beneficence and patronage Cestria owed her wealth, prosperity and importance. These are considerately omitted in the transcript as unsuitable for the publication of the Record Society, care being taken to extract and include in this volume all passages bearing any reference to the history or topography of Chester and the neighbourhood.

The disastrous fire in 1180 and the tournament in 1186 outside the walls before Prince John, are vividly described. The picture of the river Dee encircling the walls with its daily tide, its wide sands, now the Roodeye, the ships crowding the harbour, the abundance of fish, is a really living one. There are several interesting particulars furnished by the author about the churches of his time, not mentioned elsewhere, but he says nothing about Archbishop Baldwin's visit when preaching the Crusade.

The transcript appears to be most carefully made, and useful marginal notes in English are supplied summarising the paragraphs, and giving the substance of the omitted passages. It may be pointed out that on p. 28, vallem demonium is quoted in place of vallem demonum, and Basingwerk Abbey is stated to be "close to the miraculous well of St. Winifred," whereas the site is quite a mile distant.

Another Bodleian MS. is published in the same volume, extracted and annotated by Miss Taylor, Some Obits of Abbots and Founders of St. Werburgh's Abbey. The annotations are the result of considerable research, and supply useful material for a corrected History of St. Werburgh's Abbey.

THE HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE OF ST. ASAPH. Part VII. By the VEN. ARCHDEACON THOMAS, F.S.A.

PART VII has now been published of this History, the first edition of which was referred to in Arch. Camb., 1874, as a history which for completeness and accuracy probably surpasses that of any other diocese in the United Kingdom." This flattering testimony to the excellence of the original work has been heartily endorsed by all who have occasion to make use of it, and the value of the history has been immensely increased by the new matter introduced into the second edition. The Part before us treats of the Rural Deaneries of Oswestry, Penllyn, and Pool. Many quaint and interesting details are recorded in the account of the first-named. The name of Kinnerley, in the Domesday Survey, Chenardelei, the first two syllables of which the author connects with "Cyn-âr" (the first culti