Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/220

Chap. VI. OF MANCHESTER. r% Ordovices in general and at the ftation of Conovium in partis cular. And it mtfft have long remained at the latter, becaufe the ftill-remaining name of a neighbouring mountain, Mynydh Caer Lheion or the Mountain of the City of the Legion % Shews the town to have obtained the fame name among the neighbour- ing Britons, that Deva the feat of the Sixth legion for three cen- turies acquired on one fide, and that Ifca Silurum the feat of the fecond for as long a period Still retains on the other ** And to this we msjy add the Claudian legion, as the feventh was pecu- liarly called, having obtained that particular honour from the Senate becaufe of its particular attachment to Claudius during the Short-lived but alarming rebellion of 42 *. This legion was- fettled at Gloucester in the reign of Claudius '*. And at Glou- cester it mud have remained for a considerable period, as in the hiftorical monuments of the Romans which Richard cf Circn- 1 cefter inSpe&ed the town was denominated from it Legro Clau- dia, and as in our own monuments it (till retains the Similar ap- pellation of Claudioceftria ". Thus have we difcovered five legions refiderit for a longtime within the iSland, two additional to the number fuppofedbgrMr; Horfeley, and feemingly fixed by the Geography df Pteletay the Hiftory of Dio and the Itinerary of Antoninus. But the general lifts of the Roman legions in thefe authors are very de* fe&ive. That of Dio, which is the fulleft, mentions dnly thirty-one in the whole, that of Antoninus only twenty -Six, and that of Ptolemy only feventeen. Such are their lifts of the Roman legions. And as the two laft of them appear particularly defective upon a collation merely with the firSt, fo is this ex- prefsly declared to be the lift of thofe legions only which conSifted entirely of Roman citizens * And the many legions that were compofed of private volunteers from the fubje£fc nations, and which were very diftinft from the bodies of auxiliaries fupplied by the national authority of each, as the fifth legion of the Gauls, the tenth of the Batavians u , and the' twelve others that are recited in the following lift, all thefe are absolutely and pro- feSTedJy omitted in this * The authentic records of iiifcriptibns demonstrate