An Amphora from Rhos-on-Sea, Clwyd

Abstract

John Peter Wild writes in reply: My initial reaction to this note was relief that its authors are content to leave tutulus as a misapprehension of the past, but one which is a reflection of, and tribute to, the late Sir Ian Richmond's far-reaching influence on Romano-British affairs. They conclude that 'there should be no doubt at all that modern writers on Roman castrametation ought to employ the masculine form titulus'. Yet that confidence may not be shared by a reader who has carefully weighed the scholarly arguments which they have advanced above: the choice between titulus and titulum is more finely balanced than Henderson and Keppie would have us believe. The earliest and principal manuscript of Hyginus' handbook (Arcerianus) reads titulum in Cap. 49, titulus in Cap. 50. Presumably Hyginus himself was consistent, but error crept in before the sixth century. To restore titulus in Cap. 49 we must accept a scribal mis-copying of titulus as titulum, followed by a second scribe's adjustment of the grammar of the clause to fit the neuter form. The titulus of the manuscript in Cap. 50 (emended to titulum in editions after 166o) could then stand. The alternative approach is to accept the manuscript's reading titulum in Cap. 49, and assume with later editors that titulus in Cap. 50 is a slip by a single copyist. It is not, I submit, self-evident which approach the reader should prefer; for there is an element of special pleading in the former, if not the latter.