Note 112 — TINTERNE ABBEY. (continued 2)

For the avouching and confirming of the antiquity of this place, I think it not impertinent to adjoin here those antique inscriptions lately digged forth of the ground, which the Right Reverend Father in God, Francis Godwin, Bishop of Llandaffe, a passing great lover of venerable antiquity, and of all good literature, hath of his courtesie imparted unto me. In the year 1602, in a meadow adjoining Mathern, there was found by ditchers a certain image of a personage, girt and short-trussed, bearing a quiver—(but head, hands, and feet were broken off)—upon a pavement of square tile in checkerworke; also a fragment of an altar, with this inscription engraven in great capital letters three inches long, erected by Haterianus, the lieutenant-general of Augustus, and proprietor of the province of Cilicia—Haterianus Leg. Aug. Pr. Pr. Provinc. Cilic.—The next yeere following hard by, was this table also gotten out of the ground, which proveth that the foresaid image was the personage of Diana, and that her temple was repaired by Titus Flavius Posthumius Varus, an old soldier, haply of a band of the Second Legion—T. Fl. Postumius Varus V. C. Leg. Templ. Dianæ restituit. Also, a votive altar, out of which Geta, the name of Cæsar, may seeme then to have been rased, what time as he was made away by his brother Antonine Bassianus, and proclaimed an enimie; yet so as by the tract of the letters it is in some sort apparent. Pro Salute Augg. N. N. severi et Antonini [et Getæ Cæs.] P. Saltienus P. F. Mæciu Thalamus Hadri. Præf. Leg. II. Aug. C. Vampeiano et Lucilian.—Camden. Silures. Britan. pp. 637, 638.