Group 20: The Borders

This is an extremely obscure group. The first name must be connected with the Καρβαντοριγον of Ptolemy (Geography II.3,6), as observed by Richmond and Crawford (1949, 27), the correct form being *Carbantoritum; it may perhaps be identified with Raeburnfoot (Strang 1997, 21) against the Easter Happrew of Rivet and Smith (1979, 139), as suggested by the distances between it, Trimontium, Newstead, and *Leucouia, Gatehouse of Fleet, implied by Ptolemy. After this, we cannot be firm about identifications, although the suggestion of Rivet and Smith (1979, 399) that the Loxa named here is the same as the Λοξα ποταμου εκβολαι of Ptolemy (II.3,4) can be discounted on the grounds that we are dealing with the Scottish Lowlands, not the Highlands. Rivet at one point (Rivet & Smith 1979, 123) accepts that if the Cosmographer lists a name to the south of the Antonine Wall, then we are also to seek its identification to the south. This is perhaps a problem arising from the dual authorship of the volume. It is more likely that Loxa is a truncated doublet of the following name, *Locatrebae, perhaps in origin a tribal name.

Tadoritumand Maporitum should be places on a river, probably not far apart (as implied by the meanings ‘father ford’ and ‘son ford’: Richmond & Crawford 1949, 40); *Alaunolcelum, if a correct emendation (proposed by Rivet & Smith 1979, 246), may have been the name of a site on a spur overlooking Ale Water, a tributary of the River Tweed, whose name derives from the Celtic Alauna (Ekwall 1928, 7; Rivet & Smith 1979, 243). If this be accepted, then the Cosmographer is working north-eastwards towards Newstead, in which case the two preceding names could be crossings of Ettrick Water, a tributary of the Tweed, and *Locatrebae may have been Oakwood.