That Housesteads is the BORCOVICUS of the empire, [Illustration: Sepulchral Slab to a young Physician] appears plain from the numerous inscriptions that allude to the first cohort of the Tungrians, which, according to the Notitia, was quartered there. One of these inscriptions is shewn on page 63; another, a sepulchral stone, is here presented. The figure on the top of the slab I take to be a rabbit, and suspect that it had some reference to the worship of the obscene god, Priapus. The inscription is usually read in the following manner, though, perhaps, _ordinario_ might with equal propriety be read _ordinato_:— D[IIS] M[ANIBVS] ANICIO INGENVO MEDICO ORDI[NARIO] COH[ORTIS] PRIMÆ TVNGR[ORVM] VIX[IT] AN[NIS] XXV _Sacred_ to the gods of the shades below. To Anicius Ingenuus, physician in ordinary, of cohort the first of the Tungrians. He lived twenty-five years. From an inscription found at Castlecary, it appears that this cohort of Tungrians built one thousand paces of the Antonine Wall in Scotland. They were from about Tongres, on the banks of the Mæse, in Belgic Gaul. Their rank, as a milliary cohort, conferred on them the dangerous honour of advancing in the van of the army to battle, and their acknowledged valour probably procured for them the appointment to this exposed and dangerous post. [Sidenote: THE NAME ASCERTAINED.] The etymology of _Borcovicus_ is easy. A high hill to the south of the station is called Borcum or Barcomb, a neighbouring stream is designated Bardon-burn, and a village near its confluence with the Tyne, Bardon-mill. _Bar_, in Celtic, means a height, and probably forms the root of all these names; the termination, _vicus_, is a Latin word, signifying a village. The stone used in the inside of the walls of the station, and for other ordinary purposes, has been quarried out of the cliffs in the sandstone ridge, along which the present military road passes. 'The altars, columns, and quoins, and much of the ashlar work, have been taken from a stratum of freestone on the north side of the Wall, and similar to that in which the recesses, called the King and Queen’s Caves, on the south side of Broomlee-lough, are formed.'[110] [Sidenote: THE VALLUM COMMANDED BY THE CRAGS.]