Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/490

Chap. XII. OF MANCHESTER, 455 Scots acrois the frith of Cluy d into the province *° rendered any con- fiderable garrifon at the northern wall fuperfluous and ufelefs. One however was retained beyond the middle of the third century, and was attacked by Ofcar the grandlbn of Fingal, when " Caros King of ihips," Cams the admiral of the Roman navy, which was regularly ftationed at Rutupae ", and which fee'ms then to have been accidentally in one of the friths, landed perhaps a reinforcement of men, and certainly took the com- mand of the garrifon ". And in the period of Antonine's Itine- rary, iri the period of the imperial Notitia, the Romans muft certainly have ftill retained a garrifon at the wall, as they ftili retained the province of Valentia. And in both periods the Ca- ledonians appear to have not feized at all, as they certainly would have feized if there had been no garrifon at the wall* even the northern and more neighbouring parts of the province* They appear only to have infefted the provinces with their former inroads, croffing the Cluyd, and ravaging the country * And they firft took poffeffion even of the more northerly re- gions of it only at the final departure of the Romans from the ifland * + . And if we examine the Itinerary of Antoninus and the ac- counts of the Notitia unbiaffed by the determinations of our prefent antiquarians and attentive only to the obvious import of the notices, we fhall find this reafoning confirmed by the one and illuftrated by the other. The firft Iter of Antoninus bears this title prefixed to it, A Lamite u c+ A valla Praetorium ufque* and afterwards enumerates the towns A Bremenio Cor ftopitu m. — This Iter therefore undoubtedly commences from one o£ the walls : and the early nomination of Bremenium in the Iter at once evinces it tQ begin from the wall of Antoninus* the one Limes or boundary of Roman Britain. Brenoenium is demon- ftrated by a particular infcription * 5 to be the prefent Riechef- ter in Northumberland, and about eighteen miles to the north of F*-»