But the most interesting discovery in this quarter was that of the
milestone dedicated to the Emperor Victorinus (one of the Thirty
Tyrants), which was unearthed in 1879, and is now to be seen in the
Lincoln Museum. It was found probably on its original site, where the
cross street entered the Forum from Ermine Street. Victorinus held the
supreme power in Gaul for little more than a year, so that the erection
of this stone can be placed with certainty in A.D. 266-7.[15] This
discovery confirms the reading “Segelocum” in the _Antonine Itinerary_,
and also the distance there given. Some have thought that Carausius, the
“Menapian admiral,” who seized the reins of power in Britain twenty years
later under Diocletian, resided for some time in Lincoln. For this there
is not much evidence. His coins, of which there are 300 known types, are
common not in Lincolnshire only, but in all parts of England; and he
is more likely to have established himself in London or near the south
coast. But it is possible that the northern wall of Lindum, in which
some of his coins have been found, was repaired in his time or a little
later. Less than half a mile north of Newport Arch are to be seen remains
of an earthen rampart, with a fosse on the northern side extending about
350 yards east and west, and with entrenchments running from the corners
at right angles towards the city. Stukeley imagined that these were the
defences of the British “oppidum”; but their shape and the practical
certainty that the Britons would choose the edge of the hill leave little
doubt that they are Roman outworks, possibly enclosing a northern suburb.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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