Tracked down Guido 2009. An interesting read, although I will pass swiftly over the discussion of Numina Divorum Augustorum. Not really my thing and not really sure how much it adds to the various publications of D Fishwick on the subject.
However, III 'La Legio XX Valeria Victrix in Germania Inferior e la datazione dei cognomina' is more to the point. Here in the Aachen stone we have a second dedication from the province in which the legionary cognomina are present. In seeking to date this to after the presence of the legion in the province are we merely falling into a circular argument? By just looking at the inscriptions with no cognomina we prove that the legion didn't have them while in Germany and therefore the inscriptions with cognomina must be later...
Except... it's not just the inscriptions in Germany that are used to argue against the early adoption of Valeria Victrix. The earliest records in Britain likewise omit them [or is some of the same circularity evident here? The building stone from Gloucester must be later because it has VV?].
Part of the problem may lie in changing styles of dedication. Keppie has pointed out [somewhere] that legionary cognomina are rarely included in earlier first century stones, even where we have evidence that the cognomen was already in existence.
And are we comparing like with like? The dedications with VV are a different class of monument. All the others are gravestones from legionary bases (veteran at Nijmegen?) or marks of personal ownership. Expecting the same standards of usage across different classes of document is the weak link in Tomlin’s argument re the Carlisle writing tablet (without VV as late as AD84). Altogether intractable.
