STAMP NO. IX.—FOUND AT WROXETER.
This seal is remarkable both from its inscription, and from its round
form. In this last respect it is, I believe, as yet unique,—no other
specimen of a medicine-stamp of the same circular figure having, as far
as I know, been hitherto described. The stone is about seven-eighths of
an inch in diameter, and a quarter of an inch thick. Its form and
inscription are seen in Plate III. No. IX., where the upper figure shows
the stamp presenting the usual incuse and reversed inscription; and the
second or lower figure shows the impression left by the stamp upon
wax.[549]
This curious medicine-stamp was found, in 1808, by a person ploughing in
a field near the Roman wall at Wroxeter (the ancient Uriconium),
Shropshire. It was first figured and very briefly noticed by Mr. Parkes
in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1810, p. 617. “Several (observes Mr.
Parkes) have attempted to decipher the legend, but no one has as yet
been able to give a satisfactory reading.” Mr. Nightingale (1813), in
his account of Shropshire in the _Beauties of England and Wales_[550]
mentions the stamp; and Mr. Hartshorne in his _Salopia Antiqua_[551]
(1841), has given an embellished and consequently less accurate copy of
the inscription than that originally published by Mr. Parkes. Mr.
Hartshorne describes it as “an amuletal seal,” and adds, “it has
hitherto baffled the endeavours of those who have attempted to explain
it.” Lastly, Mr. Albert Way has lately correctly published it as a
specimen of a Roman medicine-stamp, and has interpreted the second and
fifth lines, leaving the others still undetermined. But the whole
appears capable of being deciphered. The inscription runs thus:—
IBCLM
DIA LBA
AD OM
NE Δ VN
O EX O
J (_ulii?_) B (_assi?_) CL_e_M_entis_ DIAL_i_BA_num_ AD OMNEM Διαθεσιν
(Diathesin) VNO EX O_vo_.—_The Dialibanum or Incense collyrium of
Julius Bassus Clemens, for every eye-disease; to be used mixed with an
egg._
The name of the practitioner or proprietor, given in the first line of
the seal, offers the principal difficulty in reading the inscription.
But the CLM is in all probability a contraction, as I have ventured to
interpret it, for CLEMENS,—a common cognomen or family name among the
Romans. The B as an initial could stand for any of the various gens
names which begin with this letter, as Balbus, Betutius, etc. I have
conjecturally given it as _Bassus_, principally because on an old
monumental tablet, discovered at Leyden,[552] the cognomen of CLEMENS is
preceded by the nomen gentilicium of BASSUS,—showing the combination in
question not to have been unknown among the Roman colonists formerly
scattered over Western Europe. Besides, _Bassus_ was a name by no means
unknown in ancient Roman medical literature and practice. When
mentioning, in the preface to his first Book, the more distinguished
disciples and followers of Asclepiades, Dioscorides places, as the
foremost in his enumeration, _Julius Bassus_. Galen (_De Simpl. Medicam.
Facult._ lib. i. cap. 7) and Cælius Aurelianus (_Contra
Hereses_—Preface to lib. i.) both cite the practice and authority of
_Bassus_; and Pliny, in his _Index Auctorum_, mentions that this
physician wrote in Greek, although he was by birth a Roman.[553]
The nature and composition of the Collyrium _Dialibanum_ we have already
had occasion to consider under a former head. (See Stamp No. VI., p.
253.)
I have also formerly shown that the Greek term Διαθεσις was used as a
general term for eye-disease (see p. 241); and no doubt its initial
letter Δ stands in the present inscription under this signification.
Many of the ancient collyria were, like the _Dialibanum_, preserved and
sold in a firm or solid form, and were directed to be dissolved or
mixed with the white of one or more eggs at the time when they were
required for application to the eye.[554] Hence the expression, UNO “EX
OVO,” in this and other stamp legends.
This stamp, like some others, has a rude figure of a plant engraved
along with the inscription. The trunk of the plant is given at the
commencement of the third line by Mr. Hartshorne as an I—thus
unnecessarily confusing the reading of the legend.