For #EpigraphyTuesday today, we're going to offer up a quick thread on this distance slab of the Twentieth Legion from Hutcheson Hill near Strathclyde.

Image: Cast of RIB 2198; Hunterian Museum, Glasgow: GLAHM:F.8

Sadly the original of this distance slab was destroyed by fire in 1871, when it had been taken to Chicago, but casts such as the one in the Image above allow us to examine the inscription still.

The text reads:

Imp(eratori) C(aesari) T(ito)
Ael(io) Hadr-
iano An-
tonino Aug(usto)
Pio p(atri) p(atriae) vex(illatio)
leg(ionis) XX V(aleriae) V(ictricis)
fec(it)
p(er) p(edum) III (milia)

Translation:

'For the Emperor Caesar Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Augustus Pius, Father of his Country, a detachment of the Twentieth Legion Valeria Victrix built this for a distance of 3000 feet.'

Thus this is a companion piece for a previous distance slab that I shared for #EpigraphyTuesday with an identical text, although this one is markedly less ornate. https://twitter.com/DocCrom/status/1331208590640738304?s=20

The date of this piece is therefore also perhaps best seen as AD 138-161, although the flanking Cupids carrying bunches of grapes and sickles are notably less imposing than the bound captives on the companion piece.

For the RIB entry, see:

https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/2198