IG. 16. ALTAR FROM CHESTERHOLM]

_Pro domu divina et numinibus Augustorum, Volcano sacrum, vicani
Vindolandesses, cu[r(am)] agente ... v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens)
m(erito)_.

'For the Divine (i.e. Imperial) House and the Divinity of the Emperors,
dedicated to Vulcan by the members of the _vicus_ of Vindolanda, under
the care of ... (name illegible).'

The statement of the reason for the dedication given in the first three
lines is strictly tautologous, the Divine House and the Divinity of the
Emperors being practically the same thing. The formula _numinibus Aug._
is very common in Britain, though somewhat rare elsewhere; in other
provinces its place is supplied by the formula _in honorem domus
divinae_; it belongs mostly to the late second and third centuries. The
plural _Augustorum_ does not appear to refer to a plurality of reigning
Emperors, but to the whole body of Emperors dead and living who were
worshipped in the Cult of the Emperors.

The _vicani Vindolandesses_ are the members of the settlement--women and
children, traders, old soldiers, and others--which grew up outside the
fort at Chesterholm, as outside nearly all Roman forts and fortresses.
In this case they formed a small self-governing community, presumably
with its own 'parish council', which could be called by the Roman term
_vicus_, even if it was not all that a proper _vicus_ should be. This
altar was put up at the vote of their 'parish meeting' and paid for,
one imagines, out of their common funds. The term _vicus_ is applied to
similar settlements outside forts on the German Limes; thus we have the
_vicani Murrenses_ at the fort of Benningen on the Murr (CIL. xiii.
6454) and the _vicus Aurelius_ or _Aurelianus_ at Oehringen (_ibid._
6541).

_Vindolandesses_, which is merely a phonetic spelling or misspelling of
_Vindolandenses_, gives the correct name of the fort. In the Notitia
it is spelt Vindolana, in the Ravennas (431. 11) Vindolanda; and as
in general the Ravennas teems with errors and the Notitia is fairly
correct, the spelling Vindolana has always been preferred, although (as
Prof. Sir John Rhys tells me) its second part _-lana_ is an etymological
puzzle. It now appears that in this, as in some few other cases, the
Ravennas has kept the true tradition. The termination _-landa_ is a
Celtic word denoting a small defined space, akin to the Welsh 'llan',
and also to the English 'land'; I cannot, however, find any other
example in which it for