The sculpture is in two compartments: that on the left seems to contain a lion, statant, raising the head of a naked and dead man: that on the right, a figure of Mithras seated on a bench, and having a flag in one hand, a wand in the other, and on its head the Persian tiara.(?) I would hazard a conjecture that the whole relates to the Mithraic rites called Leontica; for the lion, in the zodiac of the ancient heathens, stood for Mithras, or the sun, which threw its greatest heat upon the earth during its course through the constellation Leo. [Illustration: Altar to Apollo, Cawfield mile-castle] [Sidenote: ALTAR TO APOLLO.] Numerous as are the altars on the line of the Wall to the Persian god, only one has been found dedicated to Apollo, the Grecian representative of the luminary of day. It was discovered in the summer of 1850, lying near a spring in the vicinity of the Cawfield mile-castle, about midway between the Wall and the Vallum, and is now preserved in the collection of antiquities at Chesters. The following reading must be regarded as, in a great measure, conjectural; no doubt, however, can exist as to the deity to which it is dedicated. DEO APOL INI ET O[MNIBVS] N[VMINIBV]S SINIS[TRA] EXPL[ORATORVM] CVI PR[AEEST] SVLP[ICIVS] _VOTVM_ S[OLVIT] L.L. (_libentissime_) M[ERITO] To the God Apol- lo and the other deities, The left _wing_ of guides Commanded by Sulpicius, In discharge of a vow Most willingly and deservedly. It is believed that this is the only inscription to Apollo yet discovered in England, though one at least has been found in Scotland. The Roman soldiers in Britain were probably not much given to the study of the _belles lettres_, which were under the peculiar patronage of the god of the silver bow. The next is an inscription of unusual importance. Ultima Cumaei venit jam carminis aetas; Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo. Jam redit et VIRGO. [Illustration: Inscription to the Syrian Goddess, Magna] [Sidenote: INSCRIPTION TO THE SYRIAN GODDESS.] A slab was found at Carvoran in 1816, and is now in the castle of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which contains an exposition in iambic verse of the creed of a Roman tribune respecting the mother of the gods. Faber remarks, that Ceres, Cybele, Venus, the Syrian goddess Derceto, the Ph[oe]nician Astarte, and the Egyptian Isis, were all one and the same deity. The inscription, which is an unusually long one, is here arranged in lines of the length which the scansion requires—