A Roman stone inscription from an altar to Mars. The text reads: MARTI SANC TO SACRUM C. IVL ANTO NINUS MIL [LE]G XI CL [E]X VOTO POSV VIT The Latin abbreviations in the inscription can be expanded to give the Latin text Marti Sancto Sacrum Caius Iulius Antoninus miles legionis XI Claudiae ex voto posuuit, which translates as ‘Sacred to holy Mars, Caius Iulius Antoninus, a soldier in the legion XI Claudia, set this up in fulfilment of his vow’. This inscription is said to have been found in Marton parish in 2001. This find was recorded at Retford Museum [not Lincoln as stated in Source 1] in May 2001 but no further publication of the find was made at the time. It was recorded as having been found on the north side of the track that runs from Marton to the River Trent. This track follows the boundary of Marton and Gate Burton parishes This would suggest that the inscription was found on the site of the known Roman roadside settlement at Marton on Till Bridge Lane on the Lincolnshire side of the Roman ford that crossed the Trent to the Roman town of Segelocum on the western bank of the river. {1}{2} The legion XI Claudia Pia Fidelis was never stationed in Britain. It was one of the legions that guarded Rome’s northern frontier and, from the beginning of the second century onwards, served on the Danube. There are no other inscriptions mentioning this legion in Britain. There is an error in the text as ‘posuuit’ should read ‘posuit’, and it is also unusual that the full name of the legion is not given in the inscription. Consequently, this might be considered unlikely to be a Romano-British inscription and further research would be needed to establish its authenticity. {3} The altar fragment was first noted to have been discovered by Pat Foster in a pile of builders' rubble in the churchyard of the parish church of St Margaret, in May 2001. Investigation of the church interior by Buckland and Dolby in 2024 suggests that the fragment may have been removed from the interior during restoration work in the 1990s and placed in the tower, from which it was removed with other rubble during further work. The most likely location of the altar within the church is on the south side of the chancel, behind a Victorian upholstered stool in a small alcove btween two pews. The wall there appears uneven and had been recently painted over, explaining why it had not been noted previously. {4}