"To the shades of Crescens..." - an exciting new tombstone from the Wall area

A recently discovered Roman tombstone has cast new light on the soldiers who occupied Antonine Scotland.

A recently discovered Roman tombstone has cast new light on the soldiers who occupied Antonine Scotland.

Local enthusiast Larney Cavanagh found the stone in a field near Carberry in East Lothian. It is the tombstone of a cavalry

trooper called Crescens. The lower part has a Latin inscription with a brief obituary; the upper part showed a cavalryman

riding down and killing a barbarian, but most of this has been broken off, with only the horse's hooves and the unfortunate

barbarian surviving. It is a vivid reminder of the bloody side of life on the frontier. The inscription reads:

"To the shades of Crescens, cavalryman of the Ala Sebosiana, from the detachment of the Governor's Bodyguard, served 15

years, his heir(s) had this set up".

Crescens was presumably serving at the nearby fort of Inveresk, some 2 km away. This was one of the forts which provided

protection to the coast beyond the limits of the Antonine Wall. His parent unit, the Ala Sebosiana, was probably stationed

in northern England, but it is likely he was on detachment to the governor's bodyguard, the Equites Singulares, at the time

of his death. Two inscriptions from Inveresk show that the Imperial Procurator (the equivalent of the Chancellor of the

Exchequer) had visited there, and Crescens may have been part of his bodyguard.



The stone has clearly been damaged, with attempts to shape it for reuse, but we suspect it has not moved far. It probably

comes from a nearby cemetery, and we intend to carry out fieldwork to try to find this. Crescens may yet lead us to his

comrades in arms...

Fraser Hunter & Lawrence Keppie