Group 4: north Dorset and Wiltshire

We start with ‘the aforementioned town (I)sca Du(m)noniorum’, Exeter, and pass through Moriduno, Sidford?, again, although in contrast to the two previous mentions (106₂ and 106₄) and a following mention (106₁₃), it is here spelt correctly. The progression is eastwards from Exeter at first and perhaps for the whole of this group; Alauna should be a place on the River Axe (Ptolemy’s Αλαυνου ποταμου εκβολαι, II.3,4), perhaps the early fort at Waddon Hill. Rivet & Smith (1979, 461) have convincingly argued that Silua Omi... is a wrongly divided and grossly corrupt *Soruioduni, Old Sarum; to have been listed after a place on the Dorset Axe, it must have been written to the west of the symbol for the site on the map source. If this were the case, it is perhaps not therefore likely to have been split in the way envisaged by Rivet and Smith to account for the wrong division of the name. *Fl <Tedertis> is clearly a river-name, perhaps for the Stour, although the form is irretrievably corrupt. It can have no connection with the British *Stur- proposed by Ekwall (1928, 382) to account for the modern name.

The identification of Lindinis with Ilchester (Stevens 1941, 359) provides us with the next fixed point, although the identification must be counted as probable if unproven. This suggests a starting-point for a progression east from the Fosse Way. *Cantia is possibly connected with the temple site at South Cadbury, where the river-name Cam is to be derived from the same root (Ekwall 1928, 225), or with some other as yet unlocated site on or close to the river. Dillemann (1979, 66) argues unconvincingly, in view of the epigraphic evidence, that Lindinis is an error for *Londinis, London; he then explains Canza as *in Cantia inserted ‘by an over-zealous scribe’. This is surely wrong: Lindinis is a correct form, London was not in Cantium (although Ptolemy lists it as a πολισ of the <Καντικοι>), and there is no trace in the manuscript tradition of the word in. Moreover, it is extremely improbable that the Cosmographer’s understanding of the geography of Britain was good enough to have made the connection, correctly or otherwise.

Following *Cantia it is tempting to identify Dolocindo with the Dorcit of Bede (HE iv.23), Dorchester-on-Thames; it probably represents an original *Durocinto (Rivet & Smith 1979, 348; they do not seem to have seen the connection with Bede’s form, despite their comments at 513). It is a long way from South Cadbury or the River Cam, and the name may have been written to the west of the place in such a way as to suggest that the site it labelled was at the western rather than the eastern end of the name, as we have already seen with *Soruioduni. The identification of Clauinio with Gleuum, Gloucester, proposed by Rivet & Smith (1979, 206), is far from certain and fits neither the identifications and general progression proposed for this group nor those for the following group whether or not the identification of Dolocindo with Dorchester-on-Thames be accepted. That it has a convincing Celtic etymology (either ‘famous place’ or ‘nailed (timber-built) place’) is a reasonable indication that we do not have to seek an emendation of the name to locate it. It could have been a place somewhere in Wiltshire, although this is very uncertain.