A
The altar was found intact in Foregate Street,
The altar attracted much attention, with an exchange of letters between William Dugdale, Gerard Langbaine (Provost of Queen’s College Oxford), and John Selden already in December 1653 (ed. Hamper 1827: pp.274-76). The text of the inscription had been sent to Langbaine by Dugdale, and he in turn sent it to Selden, who replied that he had already received five or six different copies of it. This perhaps explains Watkin’s misleading claim (1886: p.165) that the earliest description of the altar was in a manuscript of Sir William Dugdale. A transcription was also sent by Dr William Holder, sub-dean of the Chapel Royal (1674-89), to John Aubrey (1980: p.468, facsimile of 1676 ms.). Grenehalgh’s reading of the inscription formed the basis of Prideaux’s text, since already by 1675 the inscription had become very faint. Local antiquarian Randal Holme also made a transcription (1688) and gave the earliest account of the altar in print; his edition is distinctive in providing a drawing of just the altar itself, indicating reliefs and decorative features, followed by a separate drawing of the inscription.
To Jupiter Best and Greatest Tanarus. Titus Elupius Praesens, of the Galerian voting-tribe, from Clunia,
The altar was dedicated in
The god receiving the dedication is a god of thunder, combining Roman and Celtic forms (Much 1891;
Green 1982: p.39; Green 1986a: p.130). He is otherwise unknown in Britain.
Other inscribed dedications to a Celtic/Germanic thunder god in the form
Kubitschek (1889: p.192) first made the plausible suggestion that the mysterious GVNIA (line 3) might in fact be Clunia,
a town in Hispania Tarraconensis (northern Spain), belonging to the Galerian voting-tribe. Earlier texts read Guntia (Raetia), but Mommsen (CIL III, p.721)
pointed out that Guntia did not formally exist in
The name of the dedicator is unlikely to have been ELVPIVS, an otherwise unknown nomen (Solin and Salomies (1994: p.73),
and it seems that the name was only faintly visible even when the stone was discovered. The emendation to TI. LVPIVS suggested by Michael Crawford (pers. comm.)
is attractively simple. Although Hübner in CIL conjectured a corruption of FLAVIVS,
Collingwood argued that Grenehalgh would have been ready to recognise this familiar name had it been inscribed here.
This is persuasive, but Collingwood’s conjecture,
Chester Chapter Library, Grenehalgh MS. f. 22 (1653; derived from RIB; now missing); Langbaine and Selden Letters (1653, in Hamper, ed. 1827: pp.274-76); Grenehalgh in British Library MS. Lansdowne 843 f.22-25, of 1658; Grenehalgh in Bodl. MS. Rawl. D. 1173 ff. 17-30 (written in 1671, MS. dated to 1722); Sir William Dugdale in British Library Harleian MS. 6266 pp.3-4, ‘Ara Romana nuper effossata Cestriae’, as front material before John Leyland’s Itinerary; Randal Holme, Historical Collections concerning Chester, British Library Harleian MS. 2155, 32 fol. 105-07; Aubrey (1676, ed. 1980) vol.1 pp.468-71; Prideaux (1676) p.282, no.148 (following Grenehalgh); Spon (1685) p.74; Holme (1688) III p.464; Gibson, MS collections for Camden’s Britannica vol.1 (Bod. MS. Eng. b. 2042) ff. 89-90, 94-97, 99-101, 104-105 (following Prideaux); Gibson (1695) cols 568-69; Fabretti (1702) p.338 no.510; Gale (1709) pp.52-53; Baxter (1719) p.223; Horsley (1732) p.315 + Cheshire pl. no.III; Maittaire (1732) p.34 no.45 + p.561; Hearne (1733) I Preface §4 pp.xvi-xviii, II Appendix pp.723-27; Muratori (1739) vol.1, p.331 no.6 (following Prideaux and Gale); Chandler (1763) Part 3, Pl. I.i (following Hearne and Maittaire), with drawings; Donatus (1765) p.168 no.3; Gough (1768) p.120; Gough (1789) II p.430, pl.XIII fig.2; Pennant (1810) I p.158 (following Horsley); Lysons (1810) pp.428-29; Ormerod (1819) I p.294; Orelli (1828) I no.2054; Hemingway (1831) II frontispiece map; Newton (1848) p.cxii no.58 (following Horsley); Roach Smith (1850) p.219 (following Horsley); Wright (1852) p.260; Roach Smith (1868) VI p.37 (following Horsley); CIL VII no.168 (Hübner, 1873); Watkin (1886) pp.165-68; Williams (1886) pp.13-14 no.1 (following Holme); Bannister (1887) + exchange of letters with Watkin pp.157-61; Kubitschek (1889) p.192; Hübner (1890) p.123; Collingwood (1925); ILS 4622 (1955); Wright (1955) p.13 no. ex.2 + pl.XLVI; RIB I no.452 (1965); Birley (1966) p.229; Green (1982); Green (1984) p.359 D7; Green (1986a) p.130; Birley (1986) pp.207-08; RIB I2 452 (1995); Henig (2004) = CSIR-GB-vol.I fasc.9, no.20 + plate 10; Malone (2006) p.115 no.25; Glicksman (2012)
Online: EDCS-07800732 [accessed 10/03/14]; CIL schedae SCH0000427 http://cil.bbaw.de/ [accessed 10/03/14];