THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND.
[Sidenote: Ptolemy’s description of North Britain.]
The Romans had now acquired more detailed information regarding the
number and position of the tribes of Caledonia, their names, the
situation of their towns, and the leading geographical features of the
country. These are preserved to us, as they existed at this time, by the
geographer Ptolemy, and his account of the north part of the island has
apparently been compiled from the itineraries of the Roman soldiers, the
observations made from the fleet in its circuit round the island, and
the reports of those who had penetrated into the interior of the
country. From these and other sources of information he lays down the
position of the prominent features of the coast—the headlands, bays,
estuaries, and mouths of the rivers, and the position of the towns in
the interior, by giving the latitudes and longitudes of each. These
degrees of longitude, however, are subject to a double correction.
First, he places the island in too northern a latitude; and secondly,
his degrees of longitude are less than the true degree, and therefore
the number of degrees stated between two places is greater than they
ought to be. Besides this, he has fallen into the extraordinary error of
turning the country north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde to the east
instead of to the north. This error mainly affects that part of the
country between the Solway and the Clyde on the west, and the Wear and
the Forth on the east—the coast on the west being unduly expanded, and
that on the east proportionably contracted. Beyond the Firths of Forth
and Clyde the effect of this strange error is to alter the points of the
compass, and to substitute north for west, east for north, south for
west, and west for south. The former error does not much affect the
accuracy of the relative distances of places near each other. The
latter, with the distortion of the distances and relative position of
the localities which it creates, can be corrected without difficulty,
and that part of the map reconstructed as if this error had not been
fallen into. Where the country is unaffected by these mistakes, his
accuracy is so great, when compared with the face of the country, that
his localities can be laid down, with some rare exceptions, with
considerable confidence.[55]
Ptolemy places the ‘Itunae Aestuarium’ on the west, and the mouth of the
river ‘Vedra’ on the east, nearly opposite each other, and there is
little difficulty in identifying the former with the Solway Firth, and
the latter with the river Wear.[56] It is between these points and the
river Tay that the distortion of the country takes place,—the north
shore of the Solway Firth being continued in the same northern line with
the west coast of England, instead of stretching to the west at right
angles to it,—the Mull of Galloway being his northern point, and the
northern part of Scotland made to extend towards the east. The effect
is, that in the remaining part of his description the word east must be
understood as really north, and that the east coast, from the Wear to
the Forth, is too much circumscribed in distance, while the distances on
the western side of the country are proportionably made too great. It is
remarkable that the part of the country thus affected by this
extraordinary mistake should be exactly the scene of Agricola’s
campaigns; and it appears strange that the more northern part of the
country, the information as to which he must have derived from report,
and the observation of the coast from the Roman fleet, should surpass in
accuracy that part of the country so often and so recently traversed by
Agricola’s troops, with regard to which his means of correct knowledge
might be supposed to be so much greater. We are almost led to attribute
more simple truth and force to the remark made by Tacitus, that ‘it
frequently happened that in the same camp were seen the infantry and
cavalry intermixed with the marines, all indulging their joy, full of
their adventures, and magnifying the history of their exploits; the
soldier describing, in the usual style of military ostentation, the
forests he had passed, the mountains he had climbed, and the Barbarians
whom he put to the rout; while the sailor, no less important, had his
storms and tempests, the wonders of the deep, and the spirit with which
he conquered winds and waves,’ than we should otherwise suppose. If it
could be inferred that Agricola’s soldiers had reported exaggerated
itinerary distances, and magnified the country they had traversed, and
the difficulties they had overcome, and, further, had believed, that in
the second campaign, while the rest of the country was unknown to them,
they were marching north instead of west, the mistake would be precisely
accounted for. It seems almost to add force to this conjecture, that in
the very scene where this emulation between the army and the navy is
recorded to have taken place, and where a whole summer was spent in
subjugating a comparatively small territory—the peninsula between the
firths of Forth and Tay—the distances are still more greatly
exaggerated, and the area of the peninsula increased beyond all
proportion.
[Sidenote: The coast.]
Be this as it may, let us follow Ptolemy round the coast, keeping in
view that he designates a headland by the Greek term ἄκρον, and the
Latin ‘promontorium;’ a firth or estuary by εἴσχυσις, and ‘aestuarium;’
a bay or sea loch by κόλπος, and ‘sinus;’ and the mouth of a river by
ποταμοῦ ἐκβολαί or ‘fluvii ostia.’ By correcting Ptolemy’s mistake, and
restoring the country between the Wear and Solway on the south, and the
Tay on the north, to its proper proportion, we can identify the mouth of
the river ‘Alaunus’ with that of the Alne, or Allan, in Northumberland;
while the next point mentioned by Ptolemy in proceeding along the coast
towards the north—the Boderia estuary—is obviously the ‘Bodotria’ of
Tacitus, or Firth of Forth. Directly opposite to Boderia, Ptolemy places
the Clota estuary, or Firth of Clyde, and the space between the two—the
neck of land on which Agricola placed his line of forts—is correct in
distance. Between the Ituna estuary or Solway Firth and the Clota or
Clyde, Ptolemy has three of the rivers flowing into the Solway—the
‘Novius’ or Nith, the ‘Deva’ or Dee, and the ‘Iena’[57] estuary, or that
of the Cree. They can be easily identified, though the intermediate
distances are too great. He mentions the river Luce by the name of the
‘Abravannus,’ the promontory of the ‘Novantæ’ or Mull of Galloway, the
Rerigonius Bay or Loch Ryan, and Vindogara Bay or that of Ayr.
Proceeding northwards along the east coast, we find the peninsula of
Fife unduly extended in breadth; but the great feature of the Tava
estuary, which bounds it on the north, it is impossible to mistake. Its
identity with the ‘Tavaus’ of Tacitus and the Firth of Tay is perfectly
clear. The position of the mouth of the river Tina, between the Boderia
and the Tava, corresponds with the relative situation of the river Eden,
which flows through the centre of Fife, and enters the German Ocean near
St. Andrews.
Having now passed that part of the country affected by Ptolemy’s
mistakes, as to its direction, the relative distances correspond more
closely with those of the places meant. North of the Tava, or Tay, is
the river ‘Leva,’[58] and farther north the promontory of the ‘Taexali.’
These correspond in distance exactly with the mouth of the North Esk and
with Kinnaird’s Head—the north-east point of Aberdeenshire. Here the
coast forms a bend in a direction at right angles, corresponding to the
entrance of the Moray Firth; and proceeding along the south shore we
have the river ‘Celnius’ or Devern, the ‘Tuessis’ or Spey, the
‘Loxa’[59] or Lossy, and the Varar estuary, or that part of the Moray
Firth usually termed the Firth of Beauly, and separated from it by the
narrow channel at Kessock. After this the distances, if measured in a
straight line, are found to be too great, but if the windings of the
coast, which is here greatly indented, are followed, they are
sufficiently correct, showing that they are derived from the itineraries
of coasting vessels, and that the Moray Firth had been in fact explored.
Looking across the lowlands of Easter Ross, the first landmark noticed
are the high hills on the north of the Dornoch Firth, and two stand
prominently out, forming the two sides of Strathfleet or Little Ferry.
One of these great landmarks is noted as Ὄχθη ὑψηλή, ‘Ripa alta,’ or the
high bank. Beyond these to the north is the mouth of the river ‘Ila,’
corresponding in situation with the Helmsdale river, termed by the
Highlanders the Ulie. We have then three promontories noticed—the
‘Veruvium,’ the ‘Vervedrum,’ and the ‘Orcas’ or ‘Tarvedrum.’ The
editions of Ptolemy vary as to their relative positions, but it is
impossible not to recognise the three prominent headlands of
Caithness,—the Noss Head, Duncansby Head, and Dunnet Head.
On the west coast, proceeding north from the Firth of Clyde, Ptolemy
notices the ‘Lemannonius’ Bay or Loch, which corresponds in situation
with Loch Long,[60] although the resemblance of name would almost lead
us to infer that the geographer believed that Loch Lomond opened upon
the sea. He next mentions the promontory, early known to the Romans as
that of Caledonia, under the name of the Epidium promontory, which is
obviously Kintyre. North of the Mull of Kintyre he places exactly in
Crinan Bay, which must always have been a well-known shelter for
vessels, the mouth of the ‘Longus’ river, where we now find the river
Add,[61] known to the Highlanders as the _Avon Fhada_ or long river.
[Illustration:
THE FIVE EBUDŒ
OF PTOLEMY
Compared with
THE ISLANDS
South of
ARDNAMURCHAN POINT
_W. & A.K. Johnston, Edinburgh & London._
]
[Sidenote: The Ebudæ.]
Between Scotland and Ireland Ptolemy places the five islands which he
terms the ‘Ebudæ,’ and the island of ‘Monarina;’ but these islands are
attached to his map of Ireland, to which country he held them to belong,
and their situation is not affected by the great mistake he committed in
the direction of Scotland. The most northerly of the five he terms
‘Maleus,’ which is so obviously the island of Mull that it gives us a
clue to the situation of the rest, and shows that the islands meant were
those south of the point of Ardnamurchan. The remaining four, placed in
a line on the same degree of latitude, and lying from west to east, are
termed the two ‘Ebudas,’ ‘Engaricenna’ and ‘Epidium.’ The relative
situation of the western ‘Ebuda’ towards Ireland corresponds closely
with that of Isla, and the two ‘Ebudas’ were probably Isla and Jura.
Scarba corresponds with ‘Engaricenna,’ and the more distant Lismore with
‘Epidium.’ These islands all lie in one line from south-west to
north-east. ‘Monarina’ corresponds in its position towards Ireland with
the island of Arran.[62]
Beyond the point of Ardnamurchan the western islands seem to have been
comparatively unknown. No islands are mentioned which correspond with
the Outer Hebrides, and the island of Skye seems only to have been known
by name, as it is probably meant by Ptolemy’s island of ‘Scetis,’ which
however he places apparently at random near the north-east promontory of
Scotland. On the mainland three points only are noticed,—the mouth of
the Itys river, which is probably the river Carron flowing into Loch
Carron; the Volsas Bay or Loch, which can only be the great arm of the
sea termed Loch Broom; and the mouth of the river ‘Nabarus,’ obviously
the Naver; but these points must have apparently been taken from report,
as it is difficult otherwise to account for his ignorance of the true
position of Skye, and for the absence of all mention of the great
headland of Cape Wrath, forming the north-west point of Scotland.
Along the east coast he denominates the sea the Germanic Ocean, and
along the west, from the Mull of Galloway to Dunnet Head, the
Deucaledonian.
[Sidenote: The tribes and their towns.]
Such is the wonderfully accurate notice of the salient features of the
coasts of Scotland given by a geographer of the second century; but his
description of the tribes of the interior of the country, and the
position of what he denominates towns, as compared with the physical
appearance of the country, is no less so. To these tribes Ptolemy
assigns definite names, and to some the possession of what he terms
πόλεις in Greek, and in Latin ‘oppida.’ That these towns were not
exclusively Roman stations is plain from their being mentioned in a part
of the country to which the Roman arms had not yet penetrated; neither
could they have been simply the rude hill-forts, or primitive shelters
in the woods, such as are mentioned by Cæsar; for they are only to be
found in the southern and eastern districts, and none are noticed as we
approach the rude tribes of the hill country. They certainly implied a
regularly fortified town, in which the habitations of the natives were
collected together, and formed the great defences of their territories,
as we almost invariably find them placed near the frontiers of each
tribe, or the great passes from one district to another. They would
naturally form the main points of attack in any assault upon the tribe;
and accordingly we usually find, within the sphere of the Roman
operations, a Roman camp placed in the immediate vicinity of the remains
of these towns; and the Roman stations or roads are useful in assisting
the accurate identification of these within the range of their
campaigns.
A line drawn from the Solway Firth across the island to the eastern sea
exactly separates the great nation of the Brigantes from the tribes on
the north; but this is obviously an artificial line of separation, as it
closely follows the course of the Roman wall shortly before constructed
by the Emperor Hadrian, otherwise it would imply that the southern
boundary of three Barbarian tribes was precisely on the same line where
nature presents no physical line of demarcation. There is on other
grounds reason to think that these tribes, though apparently separated
from the Brigantes by this artificial line, in reality formed part of
that great nation.[63] These tribes were the Otalini or Otadeni and
Gadeni, extending along the east coast from the Roman wall to the Firth
of Forth. They had three towns—on the south ‘Curia’ and ‘Bremenium,’
whose situations correspond with Carby Hill in Liddesdale, where there
is a strong native fort, and opposite to it a Roman station, and High
Rochester, in Redesdale. Their northern frontier was guarded by the town
of Alauna, which is placed by Ptolemy in the Firth of Forth, and
corresponds in situation with the island of Inchkeith.[64]
Farther to the west, the Selgovæ or Elgovæ occupied the county of
Dumfries, being bounded on the north by the chain of hills of which the
Lowthers formed the highest part, and extending along the shores of the
Solway Firth as far as the river Nith. Their towns were
‘Trimontium,’[65] in the exact position where we find the remarkable
Roman remains on the striking hill called the Birrenswark hill;
‘Uxellum’ corresponding in situation with the Wardlaw hill in the parish
of Caerlaverock, where there are the remains of Roman and native works;
‘Corda’ at Sanquhar, in the upper part of the valley of the Kith, a name
which implies that it was the site of an ancient Caer or native
strength. The remaining town of the Selgovæ—Carbantorigum—is placed by
Ptolemy on the exact position of the remains of a very remarkable
stronghold termed the Moat of Urr, lying between the Nith and the Dee.
To the west of the Selgovæ lay the tribe of the Novantæ, occupying the
modern counties of Kirkcudbright and Wigtown. Their towns were—Lucopibia
at Whithorn, where there are the remains of Roman works, and
Rerigonium[66] on the eastern shore of Loch Ryan, the fortified moat of
which is still to be seen on the farm of Innermessan.
North of the Selgovæ and Novantæ, and separated from them by the chain
of hills which divides the northern rivers from the waters which flow
into the Solway, was the great nation of the Damnonii, extending as far
north as the river Tay. They possessed south of the Firths of Forth and
Clyde the modern counties of Ayr, Lanark, and Renfrew; and north of
these estuaries, the counties of Dumbarton and Stirling, and the
districts of Menteith, Stratherne, and Fothreve, or the western half of
the peninsula of Fife. This great nation thus lay in the centre of
Scotland, completely separating the tribes of the Otalini or Otadeni,
Selgovæ or Elgovæ, and Novantæ, on the south, from the northern tribes
beyond the Tay, and were the ‘novæ gentes,’ or new nations, whose
territories Agricola ravaged to the ‘Tavaus’ or Tay in his third
campaign. They possessed six towns,—three south of the firths, and three
north of them. Their towns in the southern districts were ‘Colania,’
near the sources of the Clyde, a frontier but apparently unimportant
post; ‘Coria,’ at Carstairs, on the Clyde near Lanark, which, from the
numerous remains both Roman and native, appears to have been their
principal seat; and ‘Vandogara,’[67] on the river Irvine, at Loudon Hill
in Ayrshire, where there are the remains of a Roman camp, which was
afterwards connected with ‘Coria,’ or Carstairs, by a Roman road. In
their northern districts the geographer likewise places three
towns,—‘Alauna’ at the junction of the Allan with the Forth, a position
which guarded what was for many centuries the great entrance to
Caledonia from the south; ‘Lindum’ at Ardoch, where the number of Roman
camps, and of hill-forts which surround them, indicates an important
position; and ‘Victoria,’ situated at Loch Orr, a lake in the western
part of Fife, occupied by this nation, where there are the remains of a
Roman station.
On the east coast, the ‘Vernicomes’ possessed the eastern half of Fife,
or the ancient Fife exclusive of Fothreve, and the counties of Forfar
and Kincardine. The only town mentioned is ‘Orrea,’ which must have been
situated near the junction of the Earn with the Tay, perhaps at
Abernethy. The nearest Roman station to it is at Ardargie. Farther north
along the coast, and reaching from the mountain chain of the Mounth to
the Moray Firth, were the ‘Taexali,’ who gave their name to the headland
now called Kinnaird’s Head. Their town, ‘Devana,’[68] is placed by
Ptolemy in the strath of the Dee, near the Pass of Ballater, and close
to Loch Daven, where the remains of a native town are still to be seen,
and in which the name of Devana seems yet to be preserved.
West of the two tribes of the ‘Vernicomes’ and the ‘Taexali,’ and
extending from the Moray Firth to the Tay, Ptolemy places the
‘Vacomagi,’ a border people, who lay along the line separating the
Highlands from the Lowlands. The remarkable promontory of Burghead on
the south side of the Moray Firth, on which the ramparts of the early
town are still to be seen, was one of their positions, on which they had
a town termed πτερωτὸν στρατόπεδον, Alata Castra,[69] or the Winged
Camp. They had another town on the Spey near Boharm, termed Tuessis.
Their frontier towns at the southern termination of their territory were
‘Tamea,’ placed on the remarkable island in the Tay, termed Inchtuthil,
where numerous remains exist, and ‘Banatia’ at Buchanty on the Almond,
where a strong Roman station is overlooked by the commanding native
strength on the Dunmore Hill.
To the north and west of these tribes no further towns are mentioned;
and as the Caledonii extend on the west along the entire length of the
territories of the Vacomagi, their eastern boundary formed the line of
demarcation between the tribes of the more plain and fertile districts,
who had advanced one step in the progress of social life in the
possession, even at this early period, of settled habitations and
determined limits, and the wilder tribes of the mountain region, among
whom nothing deserving the name of town in its then acceptation was
known to the Romans. Ptolemy states that the Caledonii extended from the
‘Lemannonius Sinus,’ or Loch Long, to the ‘Varár Aestuarium’ or Beauly
Firth, thus ranging along the entire boundary of the Highland portion of
Scotland. On the west they had the remarkable chain of hills termed in
the early historical documents ‘Dorsum Britanniae,’ Drumalban, or the
backbone of Scotland, a native term apparently presented in a Greek form
in Ptolemy’s καληδόνιος δρυμός, and converted by his Latin translator,
who, puzzled by the term δρυμὸς, recognised in it only an unusual Greek
word signifying an oak wood, into ‘Caledonius Saltus’ or Caledonian
Wood. That this range of hills was at all times a forest in the highland
acceptation of the term, having its southern termination at the head of
Lochs Long and Lomond, there is no doubt.
North of the Caledonii, on the other side of the Varar or Beauly Firth,
lay the ‘Canteæ’ or ‘Decantæ,’ possessing the whole of Ross-shire save
the districts on the west coast. Sutherland proper was possessed by the
‘Lugi’ and ‘Mertæ.’ Along the west coast, from the Firth of Clyde
northwards, were the ‘Epidii’ in Kintyre and Lorn. Beyond them the
‘Creones’ or ‘Croenes,’ extending probably from the Linnhe Loch to Loch
Carron. Beyond them the ‘Carnones,’ occupying probably the western
districts of Ross-shire. Beyond these again, in the west of Sutherland,
the ‘Caerini;’ and along the northern termination of Scotland, including
Caithness and the north-west of Sutherland, were the ‘Curnavii.’ Such
were the northern tribes of Britain as described by the geographer
Ptolemy in the second century, and such the knowledge the Romans now
possessed of their position, and of the towns they occupied.
[Sidenote: A.D. 139.
First Roman wall between the Forth and Clyde. Establishment
of the Roman province in Scotland.]
Ere twenty years had elapsed since this description of the tribes of the
barbarian portion of Britain was written, the frontier of the Roman
province had been advanced from the wall between the Solway and the Tyne
to the isthmus between the Forth and Clyde, the boundary destined for it
by the sagacity of Agricola. Early in the reign of Antoninus, who
succeeded Hadrian in the empire in the year 138, the independent portion
of the nation of the Brigantes had broken the bounds set to them by the
wall of Hadrian, and overrun the territories of one of the provincial
tribes, and thus drew upon themselves the vengeance of the Roman
Emperor. Lollius Urbicus was sent into Britain in the second year of his
reign, towards the end of the year 139, subdued the hostile tribes, and
constructed an earthen rampart between the Firths of Forth and Clyde,
thus advancing the frontier of the Roman province to the isthmus between
these firths, and again adding the intermediate territory to the Roman
possessions in the island. This wall between the Forth and Clyde
remained from this time, till the Romans left the island, the proper
boundary of the province during the entire period of their occupation of
Britain.[70]
The isthmus between the Forth and Clyde presents towards the west the
appearance of a great valley, having the Campsie and Kilsyth hills on
the north, and on the south a series of lesser rising grounds extending
in a continuous line from sea to sea; while the hills on the opposite
side recede as the valley approaches towards the east, till the view
from the southern rising ground extends over the magnificent plain of
the Carse of Falkirk, with the upper part of the Firth of Forth
stretching along its northern limit. The Roman wall was constructed
along the ridge of the southern rising grounds, and the remains of this
stupendous work have at all times arrested the attention of even the
careless observer. This great work, as it presents itself to the
inspection of those who have examined it minutely, consisted of a large
rampart of intermingled stone and earth, strengthened by sods of turf,
and must have originally measured 20 feet in height, and 24 feet in
breadth at the base. It was surmounted by a parapet having a level
platform behind it, for the protection of its defenders. In front there
extended along its whole course an immense fosse, averaging about 40
feet wide and 20 feet deep. To the southward of the whole was a military
way, presenting the usual appearance of a Roman causewayed road. This
great barrier extended from Bridgeness, near Carriden, on the Firth of
Forth, to Chapelhill, near West Kilpatrick, on the Clyde, a distance of
twenty-seven English miles,—having, at intervals of about two miles,
small square forts or stations, which, judging from those that remain,
amounted in all to nineteen in number, and between them were smaller
watch-towers.[71]
Such was this formidable barrier in its complete state; but it is not
likely that it owed its entire construction to Lollius Urbicus. His work
appears to have been limited to what was constructed of turf, and
consisted probably only of the earthen rampart itself. Few probably, if
any, of the principal ‘castella’ formed part of the original
construction, as their remains indicate a more elaborate foundation.
Numerous inscriptions have been found along the course of the wall,
which show that the ‘vallum,’ as it is termed in these inscriptions, had
been constructed by the second, the sixth, and the twentieth legions, or
rather by their vexillations. The first and last of these legions had
been in Britain since the time of Claudius; the sixth was brought into
the island by Hadrian. The inscriptions connect the work with the name
of Antoninus, and in one that of Lollius Urbicus has been found.
[Sidenote: A.D. 162.
Attempt on the province by the natives.]
This great work, guarded as it was by a powerful body of Roman troops,
seems to have effectually protected the Roman province in its increased
extent during the remainder of the reign of Antoninus. But the first
year of a new emperor was, as usual, marked in Britain by an attempt
upon the province by the northern tribes, and Calphurnius Agricola was
sent to Britain to quell them. This was in the year 162.[72]
[Sidenote: A.D. 182.
Formidable irruption of tribes north of wall repelled by
Marcellus Ulpius.]
In the commencement of the reign of Commodus, twenty years later, the
irruption was of a more formidable character. The nations on the north
of the wall succeeded in breaking through that great barrier, slew the
commander with a number of the soldiers who guarded it, and spread
devastation over the neighbouring part of the province. The war created
great alarm at Rome, and Marcellus Ulpius was sent by Commodus against
them,—a general whose character, as drawn by Dio Cassius, peculiarly
fitted him for the task, and he appears to have succeeded in repelling
the invading tribes, and terminating the war two years later.[73]
On the death of Commodus in the year 192, three able generals commanded
the Roman troops stationed at the principal points of the boundary of
the Roman empire—Pescennius Niger in Syria, Lucius Septimius Severus in
Pannonia, and Clodius Albinus in Britain; and after the death of
Pertinax and Didius Julianus—the short-lived emperors who had been put
up and as speedily deposed by the Prætorian guards—a struggle took place
between these generals for the empire. Severus was proclaimed emperor at
Rome, but he found himself at once in a position of great difficulty;
for both of his rivals were formidable opponents, both were in command
of powerful armies devoted to them, and he could not proceed to attack
the one without exposing the seat of the empire to be seized upon by the
other, or remain at Rome without drawing upon himself the simultaneous
attack of both. He therefore caused Albinus to be proclaimed Cæsar, had
his title confirmed by the senate, and sent letters to him to invite him
to share in the government, but recommended that he should make Britain
the seat of his government, and devote himself to the care of that
province. An example was thus for the first time set of the command of
the troops in Britain being associated with the imperial dignity, which
some of the succeeding commanders were not slow to imitate, and a
separate interest created with reference to Britain, which tended to
isolate it from the rest of the empire, and greatly affected the
fortunes of both. It is unnecessary for our purpose to detail the
struggle which now took place between Severus and Pescennius Niger, and
resulted in the defeat and death of the latter in the year 194. Severus
then led his army into Gaul to attack Albinus, who promptly met him by
crossing the channel with the British army, and in the battle of Lyons
which ensued, he also was defeated and slain in the year 197,[74] and
Severus found himself in possession of the undivided rule of the Roman
world.
[Sidenote: A.D. 201.
Revolt of Caledonii and Mæatæ.]
It would appear that Albinus, in the course of his government, had come
to terms with the barbarians or independent tribes of the north, for
four years after this battle we find the natives of the Mæatæ, now for
the first time mentioned, threatening hostilities against the Roman
province, and the Caledonii, who are accused of not abiding by their
promises, preparing to assist them. The governor, Virius Lupus, who had
probably been sent as Albinus’s successor, being unable to obtain
assistance from Severus in consequence of his being engaged in war
elsewhere, appears to have been driven by necessity to purchase peace
from the Mæatæ at a great price, a circumstance which shows the
formidable character which the independent tribes of the north still
bore, and the extent to which they taxed the military ability and energy
of the Roman governors to protect the province from their attacks.
[Sidenote: A.D. 204.
Division of Roman Britain into two Provinces.]
The great extent of the province, and the difficulty experienced in
defending it, probably led to Roman Britain being now divided into two
provinces. Herodian distinctly tells us that after the war with Albinus,
Severus settled matters in Britain, dividing it into two governments,
and Dio alludes to them under the names of Upper and Lower Britain. It
is impossible now to ascertain the precise relative position of the two
provinces; but the older province of Britain, formed in the reign of
Claudius, seems to have been one, while the other probably embraced the
later conquests of the Romans from the Humber to the Firths of Forth and
Clyde, comprising mainly the great nation of the Brigantes with its
dependent tribes. Dio states that the second and twentieth legions were
stationed in Upper Britain, while Ptolemy places the one at Isca Silurum
or Caerleon; and both Ptolemy and the Itinerary of Antonine place the
other at Deva, now Chester. The sixth legion was stationed, according to
Dio, in Lower Britain, and Ptolemy as well as the Itinerary of Antonine
place it at York, which is the only indication we have of the situation
of the two provinces.
These few meagre and incidental notices are all that we possess of the
state of the Roman occupation of Britain, from the clear and detailed
account given by Tacitus of Agricola’s campaigns, to the second great
attempt to subdue the northern tribes, which we are now approaching. The
one great feature of this intermediate period was the construction of
the great rampart between the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and the fixing
of that boundary as the frontier of the province—the line of separation
between the provincial Britons and the barbarian or independent tribes.
To the few emphatic words of the historian of Antoninus, the remains of
the great work itself, and the inscriptions found in its vicinity, add
confirmation and a definite locality; and the great boundary at the
Firths of Forth and Clyde became from thenceforth the recognised and
permanent frontier of the Roman province.
[Sidenote: A.D. 208.
Campaign of the Emperor Severus in Britain.]
While Severus remained at Rome, after the defeat and death of Albinus,
he received letters from the prefect of Britain announcing that the
independent tribes had again broken loose and were in a state of open
hostility, overrunning the province, driving off booty, and laying
everything waste; and that it would be necessary for him either to send
additional troops, or to come in person, to take steps for the
protection of the province. The latter was the course adopted by
Severus. Accompanied by his two sons, and from age and disease
travelling in a litter, he arrived in Britain in the year 208, and
drawing his troops together from all quarters, and concentrating a vast
force, he prepared for war. His object in these great preparations was
apparently not merely to repel the incursions of the enemy, but
effectually to prevent them from renewing them by striking a severe
blow, and carrying the war, as Agricola had done before him, into their
fastnesses and the interior of the country.
[Sidenote: Situation of hostile tribes.]
When this war again drew the attention of the Roman historians to the
state of the barbarian or hostile tribes, they found them in a very
different situation from what they had been when so vividly painted by
Tacitus, and so minutely described by Ptolemy. Instead of their
condition as described by the former, who only knew them as a number of
separate and independent tribes, inhabiting a part of Britain known by
the name of Caledonia, and whom the imminence of the Roman invasion
alone united into a temporary confederacy, they are now found combined
into two nations, bearing the names respectively of ‘Caledonii’ and
‘Mæatæ,’ for into these two, says the historian Dio as abridged by
Xiphiline, ‘were the names of the others merged.’ The nation of the
‘Mæatæ’ consisted of those tribes which were situated next the wall
between the Forth and Clyde on the north. The ‘Caledonii’ lay beyond
them. The former inhabited the more level districts, or, as the
historian describes them, the plains and marshes, from which indeed they
probably derived their name.[75] The latter occupied the more
mountainous region beyond them. There is no reason to suppose that the
line of separation between them differed very much from that which
divided the tribe of the ‘Caledonii,’ as described by Ptolemy, from
those on the south and east of them.
The manners of the two nations are described as the same, and they are
viewed by the historians in these respects as if they were but one
people. They are said to have neither walls nor cities, as the Romans
regarded such, and to have neglected the cultivation of the ground. They
lived by pasturage, the chase, and the natural fruits of the earth. The
great characteristics of the tribes believed to be indigenous were found
to exist among them. They fought in chariots, and to their arms of the
sword and shield, as described by Tacitus, they had now added a short
spear of peculiar construction, having a brazen knob at the end of the
shaft, which they shook to terrify their enemies, and likewise a dagger.
They are said to have had community of women, and the whole of their
progeny were reared as the joint offspring of each small community. And
the third great characteristic, the custom of painting the body,
attracted particular notice. They are described as puncturing their
bodies, so as, by a process of tattooing, to produce the representation
of animals, and to have refrained from clothing, in order that what they
considered an ornament should not be hidden.
But in these descriptions it must be remembered that the Romans only saw
them in summer, and when actually engaged in war; and that, like the
American Indians in their war-paint, their appearance might be very
different, and convey a totally erroneous impression of their social
habits, from what really existed among them in their domestic state.
The arrival of the Emperor himself in Britain, and the vigorous
preparations Severus at once made, caused great alarm among the hostile
tribes, and they sent ambassadors to sue for peace. They had hitherto
easily obtained it; but it was not Severus’s intention to depart from
his purpose of total subjugation, and he dismissed the ambassadors
without a decided answer, and without avowing his purpose, and proceeded
with his preparations. When these had been completed, and a larger force
collected than had ever yet been arrayed against them, Severus left his
son Geta in the province, and taking his son Antoninus with him, he
‘passed the fortresses and rivers which guarded the frontier, and
entered Caledonia.’ Severus had seen that the nature of the country had
hitherto in the main prevented the Romans from penetrating far, or their
conquests from being permanent in the north. The numerous natural
bulwarks, the wide-spreading woods, and the extensive marshes,
interposed almost insurmountable obstacles. What are now extensive
plains, well-watered straths, and rich carses, must then have presented
the appearance of a jungle or bush of oak, birch, or hazel; the higher
ground rocky and barren, and the lower soft and marshy. If the native
tribes were for a time subdued, and their strongholds taken, they could
not be maintained in such a country by the Romans, and the natives
speedily regained possession. The policy adopted by Severus was the true
mode of overcoming such obstacles—to open up the country and render it
passable for troops by clearing the jungles, forming roads in every
direction, and throwing bridges over the rivers, so as to penetrate
slowly with his troops and enable them to continue in possession of the
districts as they occupied them in their advance through the country.
There could not be a better illustration of what a war between the
Romans and these outlying tribes at this time really was, and how
Severus dealt with it, than a few extracts from a speech by the Duke of
Wellington upon our war at the Cape with the Kaffir tribes beyond the
Colony in 1852. He says,—‘The operations of the Kaffirs have been
carried on by the occupation of extensive regions, which in some places
are called jungle, in others bush: but in reality it is thick-set, the
thickest wood that can be found anywhere. The Kaffirs having established
themselves in these fastnesses with their plunder, on which they exist,
their assailants suffer great losses. They move away with more or less
celerity and activity, sometimes losing and sometimes saving their
plunder, but they always evacuate their fastnesses; our troops do not,
cannot, occupy these places. They would be useless to them, and in point
of fact, they could not live in them. The enemy moves off, and is
attacked again; and the consequence is, to my certain knowledge, under
the last three Governments, that some of these fastnesses have been
attacked three or four times over, and on every occasion with great loss
to the assailants. There is a remedy for these evils: when these
fastnesses are stormed and captured, they should be totally destroyed. I
have had a good deal to do with such guerilla warfare, and the only mode
of subduing a country like that is to open roads into it, so as to admit
of troops with the utmost facility. It is absolutely necessary that
roads should be opened immediately into these fastnesses.... The only
fault I can find with Sir Harry Smith’s operations is, that he has not
adopted the plan of opening such roads, after he had attacked and taken
these fastnesses. I have, however, instructed him to do so in future;
but it is a work of great labour; it will occupy a considerable time,
and can only be executed at great expense.’[76]
[Sidenote: Roman roads in Scotland.]
It is to this period that the traces of the Roman roads beyond the wall
must be attributed, and their remains, with those of the Roman camps
beyond the Tay, enable us to trace Severus’s route. He advanced to the
northern wall by the road called Watling Street, repairing the
fortifications of the stations as he passed.[77] From the wall near
Falkirk, a road proceeds in a direct line to Stirling, where the great
pass over the Forth into the north of Scotland has always had its
locality. From Stirling westward along the banks of the Forth, where now
are to be seen the Flanders and Kincardine mosses, there must have
extended one dense forest, the remains of which are imbedded in these
mosses, and there, at some depth below the present surface, are to be
found remains of Roman roads. From the west of the district of Menteith
to Dunkeld must have stretched a thick wood of birch and hazel, and from
Stirling the Roman road proceeds through Stratherne to the junction of
the Almond with the Tay. Crossing the Tay, it leaves the camp at Grassy
Walls, which had been occupied by Agricola, and proceeds in the
direction of a large camp near Forfar termed Battledykes. This camp is
larger than any of those which may, with every appearance of
probability, be attributed to Agricola, and is capable of holding a
greater body of troops than his army consisted of; while, if the view we
have given of his campaigns be correct, it lay beyond the limit of his
utmost advance into the country.
From the great camp at Battledykes, a line of camps, evidently the
construction of one hand, and connected with each other by a
continuation of the Roman road, extends at intervals corresponding in
distance to a day’s march of a Roman army, through the counties of
Forfar, Kincardine, and Aberdeen, till they terminate at the shores of
the Moray Firth.[78] Severus is said by the historians Dio and Herodian
to have entered Caledonia at the head of an enormous army, and to have
penetrated even to the extremity of the island, where ‘he examined the
parallax and the length of the days and nights.’ It would appear from
these silent witnesses of his march, that he had opened up and occupied
the country between the northern wall and the Tay; that he had then
concentrated his army in the great camp at Battledykes, and leaving a
part of his troops there to prevent his retreat from being cut off, had
penetrated through the districts extending along the east coast till he
had reached the great estuary of the Moray Firth, where the ocean lay
extended before him, and he might well suppose he had reached the
extremity of the island.[79]
During this march Severus is said to have fought no battle, his system
of opening up the country and rendering it passable for his troops,
insuring him its possession as he slowly advanced; but the natives
appear to have carried on a kind of guerilla warfare against the parties
engaged in these works, assailing them at every advantage, and enticing
them into the woods and defiles by every stratagem, so that, although
Severus’s progress was sure, his loss is said to have been very great.
This circumstance on his part, and the effect upon the natives of his
success in penetrating to a point which no Roman invader had hitherto
reached, or even attempted, led eventually to a peace, the principal
condition of which was that the native tribes should yield up a
considerable part of their territory to be garrisoned by Roman troops.
The part ceded could hardly have been any other district than that
extending from the northern wall to the Tay, a district which Agricola
had likewise held to a limited extent in advance of the frontier he
designed for the province, and this is confirmed by the existence of a
temporary camp and a strong station at Fortingall, not far from where
the river Tay issues from the lake of the same name. It appears to have
been an outpost beyond the Tay, and there is no known circumstance
connected with the Roman occupation of Britain to which its existence
can be attributed, with any probability or with any support from
authority, save this cession of territory to Severus. There is a similar
camp and station at Fendoch on the banks of the Almond, where it emerges
from the Grampians, and a corresponding camp and station at Ardoch,
which can be distinguished from Agricola’s camp there.
A part of the inhabitants of this district, too, made their appearance
about this time in the Roman army, and two inscriptions found at Nieder
Biebr on the Rhine, one of which is dated in 239, show that there were
stationed there troops composed of the Horesti, and of the people who
possessed Victoria as their chief seat, from which it would appear that
Severus had enrolled bodies of the inhabitants of the ceded district
among the Roman auxiliaries.[80] These are all marks of Severus’s
occupation of this district, and, as there are traces of Roman works on
the Spey at Pitmain, on the line between the Moray Firth and Fortingall,
it would appear that Severus with a part of the army had returned
through the heart of the Highlands.
[Sidenote: Severus’s wall.]
Having thus concluded a peace with the Caledonii and Mæatæ, and
compelled them to yield up to him a part of their territory north of the
wall to be occupied by his troops in advance of the frontier, Severus
proceeded to reconstruct the wall between the Forth and the Clyde, as
the actual boundary of the province. He appears to have added the large
fosse or ditch, to have placed additional posts along the wall, and to
have repaired and strengthened the structure itself.[81]
Having completed this work, and left the province thus once more
protected, with the additional security of the occupation by Roman
outposts of the ceded territory beyond the wall, he returned to York,
leaving behind him Antoninus, whom he was apparently not desirous to
retain with him, in consequence of an attempt he had made upon his life
in presence of the army, while conferring with the Caledonians regarding
the treaty of peace, in charge of the frontier. He had not remained long
at York before the Mæatæ again revolted, and were joined by the
Caledonians, and he was only prevented from recommencing a war of
extermination by his death, which took place at York in the year 211.
Antoninus, as soon as he became, by the death of his father, possessed
of the imperial power, being desirous to disembarrass himself of
everything that could interfere with his perfect enjoyment of it,
terminated the war by making peace with the barbarian natives, and,
receiving pledges of their fidelity, left the frontier of which he had
remained in charge.
Thus terminated the most formidable attempt which had been made to
subjugate the inhabitants of the barren regions of the north since the
campaigns of Agricola; and although the expedition was more successful,
inasmuch as the army penetrated farther into the country, it was equally
unproductive of permanent result, and was not marked by the same
brilliant feature of the defeat of the entire force of the hostile
tribes in a pitched battle.
[Sidenote: A.D. 287.
Revolt of Carausius; Britain for ten years independent.]
There occurs again at this period a silence as to the relative position
of the Romans and the barbarian tribes, till, after an interval of
seventy-five years, the attention of the Roman historians is once more
called to this distant part of the Empire by the revolt and usurpation
of the purple by Carausius, in the early part of the reign of the
Emperor Diocletian. In accordance with a custom now becoming frequent in
the Roman Empire, Diocletian had associated with him in the government
Maximian, and to the share of the latter fell the western provinces of
Gaul, Spain, and Britain. A new feature now took place in the history of
these provinces. This was the appearance of two new barbaric nations,
destined to occupy an important position among the European kingdoms—the
Franks and the Saxons—who now appeared in the British seas and ravaged
the coasts of Gaul, Belgium, and Britain. In order to repress them and
to protect these countries from their inroads, a Roman fleet was
stationed at Gesoriacum or Boulogne. Carausius, a native of the city of
Menapia in Belgium, who had risen to eminence in the Roman army, was
appointed to command it, and soon distinguished himself in repressing
the inroads of these new barbarian tribes. He was accused, however, of
retaining the spoil he took from them, which he ought to have accounted
for, and of encouraging them in their piratical expeditions in order
that he might secure for himself the booty they had taken. Maximian, in
consequence, resolved to put him to death; but Carausius, having become
aware of his intention, anticipated the resolution of the Emperor by
assuming the purple and taking possession of the provinces of Britain.
He took with him in his revolt the fleet under his charge; the Roman
soldiers in Britain obeyed him, and he increased his naval force by
building numerous new vessels.[82]
[Sidenote: A.D. 289. Carausius admitted Emperor.]
A Barbarian by birth, and consequently connected with native tribes, he
appears to have received the ready submission of the Britons, as well as
the support of the independent tribes, and Britain for the time assumed
the appearance of a separate empire, in which he maintained himself by
his fleet. Maximian, after trying in vain to reduce him, at length
concluded a peace, bestowing upon him the title of Augustus, and
intrusting to him the care of those provinces he had already taken
possession of.[83] In the meantime, owing to the disturbed state of the
Empire and the revolt in Britain, Diocletian created Galerius Maximian
and Constantius Chlorus, Cæsars.
[Sidenote: A.D. 29 Constantius Chlorus recovers Britain.]
It appears that the latter, to whose share the provinces of Gaul, Spain,
and Britain were assigned, resolved to wrest the provinces of Britain
from the usurper, but of the particulars of this war we know nothing
except what may be gathered from a few hints of the panegyrists. We
ascertain from them that in the year 292 Constantius Chlorus had wrested
Gaul from the influence of Carausius, and besieged and taken possession
of the harbour of Boulogne, compelling Carausius to withdraw his ships
to Britain, where his rule was popular, Constantius being unable to
carry the war into Britain for want of vessels.[84]
[Sidenote: A.D. 294.
Carausius slain by Allectus.]
The reign of Carausius was one of prosperity to the Britons, and his
government vigorous, but it was terminated by his assassination by
Allectus, one of his followers, who had conspired against him, and whose
cause seems to have been mainly supported by the independent tribes.
Allectus had not been long in the enjoyment of his insular dominion,
when Constantius Chlorus, having now caused vessels to be made, sailed
from Boulogne to Britain two years after the death of Carausius. He is
described as passing in a mist the British fleet which was cruising near
the Isle of Wight, and landed in Britain, when he marched upon London,
and his army under Asclepiodotus, having followed Allectus, a battle
took place in which the latter was defeated and slain. It was found
after the battle that Allectus had few Roman soldiers, and that his army
consisted principally of Barbarians who had been enlisted by him, and in
whom, from the allusion by the panegyrists to a marked characteristic
indicated by Tacitus as distinguishing them from the rest of the
Britons, we can recognise the inhabitants of Caledonia.[85] Britain had
thus been separated from the rest of the Roman Empire for ten years,
seven of which belong to the reign of Carausius, and three to that of
Allectus, and had for the greater part of that time been under the
government of one who united an origin derived from the native tribes
with the imperial authority. It almost seemed as if she was destined at
that early period to commence her independent existence as a great
maritime power, had the assassination of Carausius not altered the
character of her fortunes.
[Sidenote: A.D. 306. War of Constantius Chlorus against Caledonians and
other Picts.]
The termination of this independent government was the signal for the
independent tribes to break out into hostilities; and, as they emerged
from under the government of Carausius and Allectus into their old
position towards the Roman province they now appear for the first time
under the general name of Picts, one section of whom bore the name of
Caledones. On the abdication of Diocletian in 305, Constantius Chlorus
became Emperor of the West, and apparently made Britain his residence
during the greater part of his short reign. In its first year he appears
to have penetrated beyond the wall, entered the plains of the low
country north of it, and defeated the Picts, who are said by one of the
panegyrists to have consisted of the Caledones and other nations not
named, but in whom we can well recognise those termed by Dio the
Mæatæ.[86] This expedition was probably limited to the territory beyond
the wall which had been ceded to the Romans in the peace concluded with
the Emperor Severus. In the following year Constantius died at York, and
his son Constantine, having become Emperor, left Britain to take
possession of the Empire.
We now hear little of Britain, and nothing of the nations beyond the
boundary of the Roman province, for a period of fifty years, till in the
year 360 a new and very important feature in the history of the Roman
occupation of Britain manifested itself. This was the commencement of
those formidable and systematic inroads of the Barbarian tribes into the
province, which were not merely temporary expeditions for plunder, but
evidently aimed at the subversion of the Roman government in Britain,
and, though checked at intervals, were ever again renewed till the
Romans finally abandoned the possession of the island.
From the expedition of Severus to the commencement of these formidable
attacks a period of 150 years had elapsed, and the few notices we have
of the events in Britain show that the integrity of the province had on
the whole been maintained, and that the provincial Britons enjoyed some
degree of security within its bounds, while the northern tribes were
restrained from making incursions beyond their territory by the
well-guarded wall, which with its numerous posts along its line, and, in
advance of it, in the ceded district, protected the frontier. The ten
years’ independent kingdom under Carausius and Allectus had not affected
this state of matters. The provincial Britons must have been equally
protected, especially under the vigorous government of the former. There
are even indications of its influence having extended over the
independent tribes, and bodies of them, whom Allectus had enlisted, were
found in his army. On the termination of this independent empire, they
emerge under a new name; and their defeat and expulsion from the
province was a necessary consequence of the renewed union of Britain
with the continental provinces under the same authority.
During this period of a century and a half, the quiet and prosperity
enjoyed by the provincial Britons led to a corresponding advance in
wealth and civilisation, and Britain became rapidly one of the most
valuable provinces of the Empire. Instead of being estimated, as Appian
represents it in the second century, as of so little value that the part
of the island possessed by the Romans was a mere encumbrance to them, it
is now described by Eumenius, in the end of the third century, as a
possession whose loss to the Empire under Carausius was severely felt.
‘So productive,’ says he, ‘is it in fruit, and so fertile in pastures,
so rich in metals and valuable for its contributions to the treasury,
surrounded on all sides with abundance of harbours, and an immense line
of coast.’[87] The cultivation of grain, and the amount of its produce,
had so greatly increased, that it had become of importance as an
exporting country; and during the reign of Julian it had formed his
great resource, from whence he drew a large supply of corn during the
great scarcity on the Continent.
[Sidenote: Division of Roman Britain into four provinces.]
A change had likewise taken place in its government. By the arrangement
introduced by Diocletian, and confirmed and established by Constantine,
the Roman Empire was divided into four portions, to correspond with the
two Emperors and two Cæsars. Each of these dioceses, as they were
called, was placed under a great officer termed the prætorian prefect.
The diocese of the west consisted of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and the
latter country was governed by a vicarius or vicar. Roman Britain, which
from the time of Severus had consisted of two provinces, termed Upper
and Lower Britain, was now divided into four provinces,—Maxima
Cæsariensis, Flavia, Britannia Prima, and Britannia Secunda,[88] the two
former or new provinces being apparently named after his father, who had
been Cæsar, and was the founder of the Flavian family. In the absence of
any direct indication of the position of these provinces, the natural
inference certainly is, that each of the former provinces had been
divided into two; and that, while Upper Britain now consisted of
Britannia Secunda and Flavia, Lower Britain was represented by Britannia
Prima and Maxima Cæsariensis. Each of these provinces had its governor,
either a consul or a president. The troops were under the command of the
‘Dux Britanniarum’ and the ‘Comes tractus maritimi.’ Under the former
were the troops stationed north of a line drawn from the Humber to the
Mersey, following the course of the river Don, and on the Roman wall
between the Solway and the Tyne; and those under the latter along the
maritime tract, exposed to the incursions of the Franks and Saxons,
extending from the Wash to Portsmouth. The former appears, therefore, to
have been the military leader in the two northern provinces, while the
functions of the latter were exercised within the two southern.
[Sidenote: A.D. 360.
Province invaded by Picts and Scots.]
The first serious attack upon the province took place in the year 360,
and proceeded from two nations. The one consisted of that union of
tribes which had now become generally known by the name of ‘Picti’ or
Picts, the distinctive appellation of the independent tribes beyond the
northern frontier after Britain had been recovered from the usurpation
of Carausius; but along with them appear now for the first time as
actors in the scene of British war a new nation or people emerging from
Ireland, and known to the Romans under the name of ‘Scoti.’[89] Having
broken the agreed-on peace, they ravaged—to use the words of the
historian who records it—the districts adjacent to the limits of the
province, and filled the provincial Britons with consternation, who
dreaded a renewal by this formidable combination of the incursions which
had now for so long a time ceased. We learn from the account given by
the historian of their eventual recovery, that the districts ravaged by
the Picts were those extending from the territories of the independent
tribes to the wall of Hadrian between the Tyne and the Solway, and that
the districts occupied by the Scots were in a different direction. They
lay on the western frontier, and consisted of part of the mountain
region of Wales on the coast opposite to Ierne, or the island of
Ireland, from whence they came.[90] The Emperor Julian was unable to
render effectual assistance, and Lupicinus, whom he sent, appears to
have been unable to do more than maintain the provinces from further
encroachment.
[Sidenote: A.D. 364.
Ravaged by Picts, Scots, Saxons, and Attacotts.]
During four years the invading tribes retained possession of the
districts they had occupied, and were with difficulty prevented from
overrunning the province; but in the fourth year a more formidable
irruption took place. To the two nations of the Picts and the Scots were
now added two other invading tribes—the Saxons, who had already made
themselves known and dreaded by their piratical incursions on the
coasts; and the Attacotti, who, we shall afterwards find, were a part of
the inhabitants of the territory on the north of Hadrian’s wall, from
which the Romans had been driven out on its seizure by the independent
tribes.[91] They now joined the Picts in invading the province from the
north, while the attack of the Saxons must have been directed against
the south-eastern shore; and thus, assailing the provinces on three
sides—the Saxons making incursions on the coast between the Wash and
Portsmouth, afterwards termed the Saxon Shore, where they appear to have
slain Nectarides, the Count of the maritime tract, the Picts and
Attacotts on the north placing Fallofaudus, the Dux Britanniarum, whose
duty it was to guard the northern frontier, in extreme peril, and the
Scots penetrating through the mountains of Wales—the invading tribes
penetrated so far into the interior, and the extent and character of
their ravages so greatly threatened the very existence of the Roman
government, that the Emperor became roused to the imminence of the
danger, and after various officers had been sent without effect, the
most eminent commander of the day, Theodosius the elder, was despatched
to the assistance of the Britons. He found the province in the
possession of the Picts, the Scots, and the Attacotts, who were ravaging
it and plundering the inhabitants in different directions. The Picts, we
are told, were then divided into two nations, the ‘Dicalidonæ’ and the
‘Vecturiones,’ a division evidently corresponding to the twofold
division of the hostile tribes in the time of Severus, the ‘Caledonii’
and the ‘Mæatæ.’ The similarity of name and situation sufficiently
identifies the first-mentioned people in each of the twofold divisions.
The Mæatæ had been obliged to cede a part of their territory to the
Romans, so that part of the nation had passed under their rule, and a
part only remaining independent probably gave rise to the new name of
‘Vecturiones.’ The ‘Attacotti,’ we are told, were a warlike nation of
the Britons, and the epithet applied to the ‘Scoti’ of ranging here and
there shows that their attacks must have been made on different parts of
the coast.[92]
[Sidenote: A.D. 369.
Province restored by Theodosius.]
Theodosius landed at ‘Rutupiæ’ or Richborough, where he had appointed
the rendezvous of the troops, and marched upon London. When arrived
there he divided his men into several bodies so as to attack different
parties of the enemy, who were ravaging the country and returning laden
with booty. These he defeated, and wresting from them their plunder,
returned to London and sent to the Continent for reinforcements. As soon
as the expected troops arrived, Theodosius left London at the head of a
powerful and well-selected army, and speedily succeeded in driving the
invaders from the provinces, and restoring the cities and fortresses. He
then directed his attention to the restoration of the province to its
wonted condition of security. The northern frontier was again protected
by the stations along the line of the wall between the Forth and Clyde
which he renewed, and part of the recovered provinces were formed into a
new and separate province, which he termed ‘Valentia,’ in honour of the
Emperor Valens.
Such is the narrative of the historian Ammianus; but, as the panegyrists
threw light upon the expeditions of Constantius, so now the poet
Claudian, in his panegyrics upon the illustrious general, supplies
further details of the character of his exploits. The Picts, says he, he
drove into their own region, to which he gives the poetical name applied
to Caledonia of Thule. The Scots he pursued across the sea to the
country from whence they proceeded—the island of Ierne; and the Saxons
he indicates had formed their headquarters in the islands of Orkney. The
stations restored by Theodosius on the frontier he identifies as
separating the province from Caledonia by his allusion to the latter
word; and it may further be inferred that he had again occupied the
castella or outposts with which the Romans garrisoned the territory
beyond the wall ceded to them in the campaign of Severus.[93]
The inhabitants of a part of the province had joined the invaders in
their second invasion under the name of Attacotti, and their territory
was now again taken possession of by the Romans. They had exhibited even
greater ferocity than the independent tribes, and these he now formed
into Roman cohorts, and enlisted as a part of the army.[94]
What part of the recovered provinces he formed into the new province of
Valentia cannot be determined with certainty. It is usually assumed to
have consisted of the territory between the walls; but this assertion,
though now accepted as almost a self-evident proposition, dates no
further back than the appearance of the spurious work attributed to
Richard of Cirencester, and rests upon his authority alone. Horsley, who
wrote before his date, considers that this part of Roman Britain
belonged to the province of Maxima Cæsariensis, and is borne out by the
distribution of the troops as given in the Notitia Imperii; the whole of
those stationed from the Humber to the southern wall and along the line
of the wall which evidently guarded the northern frontier, being placed
under the same commander, the ‘Dux Britanniæ,’ That it was a part of the
recovered provinces, and not new territory, is certain, and equally so
that it was on the frontier; but it is more probable that the new
province was designed to protect Roman Britain against the new invaders,
who had appeared for the first time under the name of Scots, and who
directed their attacks mainly on the west coast; and this is confirmed
by the appearance in the Notitia of a new military commander called the
‘Comes Britanniarum,’ who had under him three bodies of infantry, one of
which is called ‘Britanniciani juniores,’ and six bodies of cavalry, one
being placed at a station on the north of the Don, and another
transferred to the Saxon shore, which would place his command south of
the Humber and Mersey. As the ‘Comes littoris Saxonici’ protected the
south-eastern coast, and the ‘Dux Britanniæ’ the northern frontier, this
new military functionary was probably created for the protection of the
western frontier exposed to the Irish Channel. This position also
corresponds with the order in which the provinces are enumerated in the
Notitia.[95] In the absence of any trustworthy authority as to its
position, and looking merely to the slender indications from which any
inference may be drawn, we do not hesitate to pronounce that the true
Valentia was that part of the province most exposed to the attacks of
the Scots, and afterwards called Wales.
Although Theodosius for the time effectually repressed the invasions of
the hostile nations, and restored the province in its integrity, his
success left no permanent result behind it; and within forty years after
the re-establishment of the province, the Romans were notwithstanding
obliged finally to abandon the island. This arose from two causes:—the
yearly increasing pressure of the Barbarians upon the military resources
of the Empire required the withdrawal of the troops from those distant
provinces which were less easily maintained; and the same cause which
concentrated the attention of the Emperor upon the defence of the nearer
frontiers, and led him to neglect those more remote, rendered the
assumption of the imperial authority almost the inevitable consequence
of an isolated command, and a temptation too great to be resisted. Had
these usurpers been content to remain in possession of Britain alone,
they might, in the distracted state of the Empire, have been able to
have maintained their position, and an insular dominion been founded
which would have greatly affected the future history and fortunes of
Britain; but they aimed at the possession of the whole of the western
diocese of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and in grasping at too much
effected their own ruin. Their ambition led to the troops no sooner
proclaiming their general Emperor, than they were withdrawn from Britain
and conveyed into Gaul to support the usurper’s ambitious aim, and the
province was thus left undefended to the incursions of the hostile
nations.
[Sidenote: A.D. 383.
Revolt by Maximus.]
The first of these insular Emperors after the war of Theodosius was
Clemens Maximus, an Iberian or Spaniard by birth, who had served under
Theodosius in Britain, and was now, twelve years later, in command of
the Roman army there. Taking advantage of the unpopularity of the
Emperor Gratian with the army owing to favour shown to the Alans, and
jealous of the elevation of the younger Theodosius to a share in the
Empire, he excited the army in Britain to revolt, and was proclaimed
Emperor in the year 383. In the following year he repressed the
incursions of the Picts and Scots,[96] and forced the hostile nations to
yield to his power. He then crossed over to Gaul with the army of
Britain, slew the Emperor Gratian, and after maintaining himself in Gaul
for four years, he entered Italy, and was finally defeated and slain by
the Emperor Theodosius at Aquileia, in the year 388.
[Sidenote: A.D. 387.
Withdrawal of Roman troops from Britain; first devastation of
province by Picts and Scots.]
The withdrawal of the Roman troops from Britain by Maximus left the
province exposed to the incursions of their old enemies, and the two
nations of the Picts and Scots—the one from the north, where the regions
beyond the Forth and Clyde formed their seat—the other from the west,
where lay the island of Ierne, whence they proceeded—continued to harass
the provincial Britons for many years with their piratical incursions,
which they were the less able to resist as the usurper Maximus had
drained the province of the young and active men who could be trained as
soldiers, as well as withdrawn the army.
[Sidenote: A.D. 396.
Repelled by Stilicho, who sends a legion to guard the
northern wall.]
The Britons at length applied to Stilicho, the minister of the young
Emperor Honorius, and a legion was sent to Britain, which, for the time,
drove back the invading tribes, and garrisoned the wall between the
Forth and the Clyde. The recovery of the territory at the northern
frontier was on this occasion, as well as when Theodosius repelled the
invaders from it, followed by a part of the nation of the Attacotts
being enrolled in the Roman army, where they bore the name of Honoriani
in honour of the Emperor Honorius. The Roman historians affording us but
little information regarding these renewed incursions of the Picts and
Scots, their place is now supplied by the British historians Gildas and
Nennius; while the allusions to these events in the poems of Claudian
enable us to assign the somewhat vague and undated accounts of the
British historians to their true period. They tell us of this irruption
of the Picts and Scots, and of the arrival of the legion to the
assistance of the Britons. The poet Claudian connects this with the name
of Stilicho. He alludes to the legion which bridled the Scot, or the
Saxon. He describes it as guarding the frontier of Britain, as bridling
the Scot, and examining, on the body of the dying Pict, the figures
punctured with iron. He depicts Britain as saying that Stilicho had
fortified her by a wall against the neighbouring nations, and that she
neither feared the Scots crossing from Ierne, nor the Pict nor the Saxon
ravaging her coasts.[97] This fixes the date of the expulsion of the
Barbarians and arrival of the legion at the year 400, and Stilicho
appears on this occasion to have also enrolled bodies of Attacotts in
the Roman army.[98]
[Sidenote: A.D. 402.
Roman legion withdrawn; second devastation of province.]
Four years later the legion was recalled from Britain in consequence of
the Gothic war and the attacks of Alaric, and left the island, having,
as we are informed by Nennius, appointed a leader to command the
Britons. They had no sooner gone, however, than the old enemies of the
provincial Britons—the Picts and Scots—again broke into the province and
renewed their ravages.
[Sidenote: A.D. 406.
Again repelled by Stilicho, and army restored.]
After three years, Stilicho sent assistance to them. He appears to have
feared the total loss of Britain to the Romans, and, apparently desirous
to make a great effort for its permanent recovery on this occasion, he
restored the army of Britain to its usual strength, consisting of three
legions—the second, the sixth, and the twentieth—by whom the province
was effectually freed from the invaders and garrisoned by Roman
troops.[99] As long as this army remained in Britain, the province was
protected in its full extent to its frontier at the Firths of Forth and
Clyde; but the position of the army, as indicated in the Notitia
Imperii, sufficiently shows the imminence of the danger which now
threatened the province in Britain, and the quarter from whence it was
dreaded. The three legions which now protected the frontiers of this
distant portion of the Empire, in the last notice which we have
regarding the Roman troops in Britain, are found stationed in greatest
force along the wall which extended from the Tyne to the Solway, and in
the garrisons between that barrier and the Humber, and likewise in those
that protected what was now termed the Saxon shore, extending from the
Wash to Portsmouth. The ‘Comes Britanniarum’ guarded the western
frontier of the two Britains, where the new province of Valentia had
probably been formed, with troops which may have been stationed at
Caerleon and Chester, the old headquarters of the second and twentieth
legions, and the interior of the country is comparatively ungarrisoned.
The doom of this great Empire was now, however, rapidly approaching, and
the withdrawal of the troops from the remote frontiers to protect the
seat of power precipitated the fate of the frontier provinces. The great
invasion of the Vandals with the Alani and Suevi, which took place in
the year 406, and was the first of those fatal inroads of the Barbarians
into the very heart of the Empire which led to its final ruin, alarmed
the troops which remained of the army in Britain, who, on the irruption
of the Barbarians into Gaul, found that they would be cut off from the
other forces of the Empire and exposed alone in their insular position
to the attacks of the enemy, and led them to resort to the step which
had now become the habitual tendency of a Roman army so placed—to
proclaim an Emperor. Accordingly they terminated their four years’
residence in Britain by revolting, and selected Marcus as Emperor. He
was soon slain by Gratianus, who assumed the imperial authority, and
after a four months’ enjoyment of it, was in his turn slain by the
soldiers.
[Sidenote: A.D. 407.
Constantine proclaimed Emperor; withdraws the army from
Britain; third devastation by Picts and Scots.]
A soldier named Constantine was then chosen, owing his elevation mainly
to his name being that of the celebrated Emperor; and this new
Constantine no sooner assumed the purple, than, with the fatal policy of
his predecessors, he resolved to strike a blow for the possession of
Gaul, and Spain likewise. Before withdrawing the troops from Britain,
however, he counselled the provincial Britons to abandon the districts
between the walls, a territory now barely and with difficulty maintained
by them, and to protect the remainder of the province by maintaining
garrisons on the southern wall. At the same time the valleys on the
north side of the Solway Firth appear to have been protected by an
earthen rampart and fosse, which extends from the shore of the firth
opposite the western termination of the wall across the upper part of
the valleys till it terminates at Loch Ryan. On the south coast, where
the province had been exposed to the piratical descents of the Saxons,
and had hitherto been protected by the Roman vessels, he erected towers
at stated intervals. Having thus taken the best measures in his power to
enable the provincial Britons to protect the province, Constantine
crossed over to Gaul with the army, and the Roman legions left Britain,
never again to return. They had no sooner been withdrawn, than the old
enemies of the province occupied the district as far as the southern
wall to which Constantine had withdrawn the frontier; but although the
Roman troops had left the island, the civil government of the Romans
still remained in force, and the provinces of Britain continued to form
an integral part of the Empire. The events, however, connected with the
usurpation of Constantine speedily led to the termination of the Roman
government in Britain, and its final separation from the Empire.
Constantine had no sooner landed in Gaul than an engagement took place
between the British army and the Barbarians who had entered Gaul by the
passes of the Alps, in which the former were successful, and a great
slaughter of the enemy took place. The Roman troops in Gaul submitted to
Constantine, and he thus obtained possession of the whole of that
country. In the meantime, intelligence having reached Rome of
Constantine’s successful usurpation, and that the provinces of Gaul had
become subject to him, Stilicho returned to Rome from Ravenna, and sent
Sarus in command of an army against him. Justinian, one of Constantine’s
generals, was encountered and slain. Neviogastes, another, was put to
death by treachery; and Sarus proceeded to besiege Valentia, where
Constantine then was. The usurper now appointed Edovinchus, and
Gerontius a native of Britain, his generals; and Sarus, dreading their
military reputation, retreated from Valentia, which he had invested for
seven days. The new generals followed and attacked him, and it was with
difficulty he reached the Alps and escaped into Italy, having had to
bribe the ‘Bagaudæ,’ or armed peasantry, who were in possession of the
passes, by giving up to them the whole of his booty to permit his army
to pass through.
Constantine now placed garrisons in the passes of the Alps, and likewise
secured the Rhine, in order to protect the territory he had acquired
from invasion. Being now in undisturbed possession of Gaul, he created
his eldest son Constans, who had been a monk, Cæsar, and sent him into
Spain to wrest that country likewise from the government of Honorius.
Constans proceeded accordingly to Spain, having Terentius as his
general, and Apollinarius as prefect of the Prætorium, and was
encountered by the relatives of Honorius who commanded there, and who
surrendered to him after a battle in which Constans had the advantage,
and an unsuccessful attempt to destroy him by arming the peasantry.
Having thus become possessed of two of the relations of the
Emperor—Verinianus and Didymus—Constantine sent messengers to Honorius
entreating forgiveness for having allowed himself to accept the Empire,
and stating that it had been forced upon him by the soldiery. The
Emperor was in no position to contend with Constantine, and being afraid
of the fate of his relations, acceded to his request and admitted him to
a share in the imperial authority.
Constans in the meantime returned from Spain, bringing with him
Verinianus and Didymus, having left there Gerontius, the Briton, as
general, with the troops from Gaul, part of which consisted of the
British nation of the Attacotts, who had been enlisted in the Roman army
by Stilicho,[100] to guard the passes through the Pyrenees. The
unfortunate relatives of Honorius were no sooner brought before
Constantine than they were put to death, and an embassy was sent to
Honorius in the person of Jovius, a distinguished orator, to excuse the
death of his relatives, and to request that the peace might be
confirmed. The plea was, that they had been put to death without his
consent. Jovius prevailed with Honorius by pointing out to him that he
was in no condition to act otherwise, and by promising him assistance
from Constantine’s army in quelling commotions in Italy and Rome.
[Sidenote: A.D. 409.
Gerontius invites Barbarians to invade Empire.]
Termination of Roman Empire in Britain.
Constans had, in the meantime, been sent back to Spain, and took with
him Justus as his general. This gave great offence to Gerontius the
Briton, who probably only waited for a pretext to endeavour to overturn
the government of Constantine; and, having gained over the soldiers in
Spain, who, being principally Attacotts, were probably more accessible
to the influence of their countrymen, he incited the Barbarians in Gaul
to revolt, and invited those beyond the Rhine to enter the provinces.
The latter ravaged them at pleasure, the main attack having been upon
those of Britain. This took place in the year 409, and that part of the
Barbarians who were thus invited and encouraged to attack the provinces
of Britain were, we know from other sources, their old enemies, the
Picts, Scots, and Saxons. The civil government of the Romans still
continued in Britain, but Honorius, being unable to afford them
assistance, wrote letters in the following year to the cities in
Britain, urging them to look after their own safety. This was equivalent
to an abandonment of the imperial authority over Britain; and the
provincial Britons, who, no doubt in common with the inhabitants of the
other provinces, groaned under the intolerable weight of the Roman civil
government, rose against them, and having, by one unanimous and vigorous
effort, freed their cities from the invading Barbarians, drove out the
Roman prefects likewise, and shook off the Roman yoke.
In the following year Honorius, finding that the existence of the
opposing tyrants, Constantine and Gerontius, had prevented him from
opposing the Barbarians, and led to the defection of Britain and
Armorica, resolved to make an effort for their destruction, and sent
Constantius into Gaul with an army, who shut Constantine into the town
of Arles, took it, and slew him. Gerontius, at the same time, no doubt
aiming at the possession of Britain for himself, followed up his
proceedings by slaying Constans at Vienne, and setting up Maximus, said
by one author to have been his son, in his place. Gerontius was shortly
after slain by his own soldiers, and Maximus, stripped of the purple,
fled into exile among the Barbarians in Spain. The death of Gerontius
thus prevented him from reaping the fruit of his designs, whatever his
object in precipitating the Barbarians again upon the provinces of
Britain may have been.
No attempt was made to recover Britain. It no longer formed a portion of
the Roman Empire, and the Roman legions never returned to it. This great
and momentous change in the political and social condition of the island
took place in the year 410; and thus terminated the Roman dominion in
that island, which, for good or for evil, had so long endured, and so
powerfully influenced the fortunes of its inhabitants.
Such is the narrative of the Roman occupation, so far as it affected the
northern portion of the island; such the knowledge the Romans had
attained, and the record their historians have left us, compressed in
few facts, and accompanied by meagre details of the position, character,
and habits of the northern tribes occupying the barren regions of
Caledonia, who, though often assailed, and sometimes with temporary
success, preserved their independence, and remained in hostility to the
Roman government throughout the whole period of their dominion in the
island.[101]
-----
Footnote 55:
The author has felt himself obliged to enter somewhat into detail
regarding the Roman geography of Scotland, as the subject has been so
much perverted by our best writers, owing to their unfortunate
adoption of the spurious work of Richard of Cirencester. It is time
that the credit of Ptolemy should be restored, and it is impossible
for any one to compare his statements with the actual face of the
country, without being struck with their general accuracy. Between the
Solway and the Tay the country is distorted and the distances thrown
out of proportion by the unfortunate mistake which turned the north of
Scotland to the east. The effect is to increase some of the distances
to a little more than double their proper length, and proportionally
to diminish others. The whole country being placed in too northern a
latitude does not affect the distances, and the smaller degree of
longitude would be taken into account in laying down the positions;
but it must be kept in mind that Ptolemy uses no smaller division than
one-eighth of a degree, giving a possible variation to each place of
seven miles in one direction and five in another. Taking all this into
account, however, the distances between the leading features of the
country, which it is impossible to mistake, are wonderfully correct.
The Latin editions of Ptolemy are the earliest, and are greatly to be
preferred to the Greek. They were printed from a translation into
Latin by Jacob Angelus, and consist of an edition at Bologna bearing
the date 1462, but which is believed not to be the true date; one at
Vincenza in 1475, which is really the earliest edition; that of Rome,
1478, the first with maps; Ulm, 1482 and 1486; Rome, 1490 and 1507;
Venice, 1511; Strasburg, 1513, 1520, and 1522, in which the text is
compared with an old Greek MS.; an edition in 1525, which bears to be
a correction of Jacob Angelus’s translation by I. de Regiomonte, and
in which the principal changes introduced into the later Greek
editions first make their appearance; and the two editions by Servetus
in 1535 and 1541. The principal Greek editions are those of Erasmus in
1533 and 1546, Montanus in 1605, and Bertius in 1619. A recent edition
has appeared, by Dr. F. G. Wilberg, in 1838, from a collation of nine
MSS. with the editions of 1482, 1513, 1533, and 1535, and with a MS.
at Milan, another at Vienna, and two Latin MSS. collated by Mannert.
The author has himself collated for this work the Latin editions of
1482, 1486, 1520, 1522, 1525, 1535, with the Greek editions of 1605
and 1619, and with Wilberg’s edition, and he agrees with Mannert in
giving the preference among the early editions to the Ulm edition of
1482, and the Strasburg editions of 1520 and 1522. In the so-called
corrected edition of 1525 he has no confidence. The variations occur
both in the names and in the latitudes and longitudes. In cases where
all the editions agree, there can be no doubt as to the genuine text
used. When they differ, he has laid down the positions according to
the variant readings, and selected the one which best corresponded
with the appearance of the country. The agreement is mainly in the
position of the towns, and the variations in the features of the
coast, and are, therefore, more easily corrected.
Footnote 56:
The Vedra might more naturally be supposed to be the Tyne, but an
altar found at Chester-le-Street, on the Wear, on which the name Vadri
occurs, indicates the Wear as the river, to which indeed the name
bears a greater resemblance. There is no variation in the position of
these two places.
Footnote 57:
The early Latin editions have, instead of Ienae aestuarium, Fines
aestus. It is possible that this may be the correct reading, and that
Wigtown Bay may have marked the utmost limit to which the Roman troops
penetrated in Agricola’s second campaign.
Footnote 58:
The early Latin editions all read Leva. The edition of 1525 first
altered it to Deva, and is followed by the late editions, and also by
Wilberg; but the distance both from the Firth of Tay in the south and
from Kinnaird’s Head corresponds more exactly with the mouth of the
North Esk than with that of the river Dee.
Footnote 59:
The editions of Ptolemy all vary as to the situation of Loxa. The Ulm
editions place it after the Varar aestus at Lossiemouth; the Strasburg
editions at the mouth of the Nairn; while Wilberg’s edition places it
before the Varar, at the Dornoch Firth. The Ulm reading is here
preferred from the resemblance of Loxa to Lossie. The reading which
places it north of the Varar seems inadmissible, as it is described by
Ptolemy as the mouth of a river, and not an estuary or a bay, such as
the Dornoch or Cromarty Firths would be described.
Footnote 60:
This has generally been supposed to be Loch Fine, in the usual random
way of selecting the first large loch near about that part of the
coast, but the position corresponds much more nearly with that of Loch
Long. Its distance from the promontory of Kintyre is too great, and
its vicinity to the Clyde too marked, for Loch Fine. The name,
moreover, has clearly reference to the neighbouring Lake of Lomond,
and the district of Lennox, the old name of which was Leamhan.
Footnote 61:
In the same loose way the Linnhe Loch is usually supposed to be meant
by the Longus Fluvius, but it is impossible to suppose that a great
arm of the sea—the greatest on the west coast—could be expressed by
the word Fluvius. The editions give two different readings of the
position, but that of all the editions, except Wilberg’s, corresponds
with the mouth of the river Add.
Footnote 62:
Epidium has generally been identified with the island of Isla, from
the natural enough inference that its name connects it with the
Epidium promontorium, and consequently historians have been much at a
loss where to look for the two Ebudas, and have resorted to mere
conjecture. The Epidii seem, however, to have occupied Lorn as well as
Kintyre, and the name would be appropriate to any island on that
coast. Ptolemy places the two Ebudas close together, and makes them
the most westerly of the group, while Maleus or Mull is the most
northerly, placing it between Engaricenna and Epidium, which latter is
the most easterly; and a comparison between Ptolemy’s positions and
those of the islands south of the point of Ardnamurchan seems to leave
little doubt as to their identity.
Ptolemy’s five Ebudas with Monarina form the group of islands
frequently mentioned in ancient Irish documents as ‘Ara, Ile, Rachra
acus innsi orcheana,’ that is Arran, Isla, Rachra, and the other
islands.
Footnote 63:
This appears from many circumstances. Pausanias implies it when he
says that Antoninus, who advanced the frontier of the province from
Hadrian’s wall to the Firths of Forth and Clyde, took land from the
Brigantes (Paus. viii. 43). Tacitus mentions Venusius, King of the
Brigantes, hostile to Rome, and that his frontiers were to the north
of the province appears from the geographer of Ravenna placing the
town of Venusio north of the stations at the wall. The early Latin
editions of Ptolemy omit the Gadeni, and call the tribe north of the
wall Otalini; but the edition of 1525, and the later editions, have
‘Gadeni, the more northern (western); Otadeni, the more southern
(eastern);’ and the name Gadeni occurs in inscriptions. If this is the
correct reading, however, it is obvious that Ptolemy considered them
as substantially the same people, as he places the towns of Bremenium
and Curia among them generally, without distinguishing to which tribe
each belonged, and the terminations are the same. Inscriptions
mentioning the god of the Gadeni have been found at Reesingham and at
Old Penrith, within the territory of the Brigantes. On the other hand,
an inscription to the goddess Brigantia has been found at Middlebie,
within the territory of the Selgovæ.
Footnote 64:
This seems to be the town mentioned by Bede, _Ec. Hist._ B. i. c. 12,
‘Orientalis (sinus) habet in medio sui urbem Giudi.’
Footnote 65:
Trimontium has been identified with the Eildon hills in Roxburghshire,
owing simply to the resemblance of the form of the hill with a station
supposed to be called the Three Mountains; but it is more probable
that the syllable Tri represents the Welsh Tre or Tref, and that it is
a rendering of Trefmynydd, or the Town on the Mountain. To place it at
the Eildon hills is to do great violence to Ptolemy’s text.
Footnote 66:
The first of our historians to make use of Ptolemy was Hector Boece,
but he placed his names too far north. He puts the Brigantes in
Galloway, and the Novantes in Kintyre, and hence their towns are
placed in Argyll instead of Wigtown. The Ulm edition of 1486, which is
a very inaccurate one, was apparently the edition used by Boece, and
in it the name Rerigonium is misprinted Beregonium. Boece applied the
name to the vitrified remains, the correct name of which was
Dunmhicuisneachan, the fort of the sons of Uisneach, now corrupted
into Dunmacsniochan, and thus arose one of the spurious traditions
created by Boece’s History.
Footnote 67:
In some of the editions this name is Vanduara, and is considered by
Chalmers to have been Paisley, and he has been followed by all
subsequent writers. His reasons are very inconclusive, viz. that there
are said to have been Roman remains at Paisley, and that Vanduara is
probably derived from the Welsh Gwendwr or White water, and the river
at Paisley is called the White Cart. But rivers do not change their
names. If it had ever been called Gwendwr, it would have borne the
name still; and to rest the identity of Vanduara with Paisley upon a
mere conjectural etymology is the reverse of satisfactory. The best
editions give Vandogara as the form of the name, which obviously
connects it with Vindogara or the bay of Ayr; and Ptolemy’s position
corresponds very closely with Loudon Hill on the river Irvine, where
there is a Roman camp. What confirms this identity is, that the towns
in the territory of the Damnonii appear afterwards to have been all
connected with Roman roads, and there are the remains of a Roman road
leading from this camp to Carstairs.
Footnote 68:
All editions agree in placing Devana in the interior of the country,
at a distance of at least thirty miles from the coast. Its identity
with the sea-port of Aberdeen rests upon the authority of Richard of
Cirencester alone.
Footnote 69:
Mr. Burton, in stating his disbelief in the genuineness of Richard and
its results, adds, among other things to be abandoned, ‘the celebrated
Winged Camp; the Pteroton Stratopedon can no longer remain at Burghead
in Moray, though a water tank there has become a Roman bath to help in
its identification, and it must go back to Edinburgh or some other of
its old sites.’—(Vol. i. p. 62.) He is, however, mistaken in supposing
that its identification rests upon Richard. Ptolemy is in reality the
authority for Alata Castra and its position on the shore of the Moray
Firth.
It is of course absurd to recognise Roman remains there at that early
period, but there can be no question that a native strength existed on
that headland. See _Proc. Ant. Soc._ vol. iv. p. 321, for an account
of the remains.
Footnote 70:
The only authorities for the events in the reign of Antoninus are two
short passages. One, the passage of Pausanias, referred to in Note
^{63}, and the other of Julius Capitolinus, who says (_De Anton. Pio_,
5), ‘Per legatos suos plurima bella gessit. Nam et Britannos per
Lollium Urbicum legatum vicit, alio muro cespiticio submotis barbaris
ducto.’ The expression ‘submotis barbaris’ proves that this wall now
formed the boundary between the barbarian or independent tribes and
the Roman province. It is analogous to the expression used by Aelius
Spartianus of ‘qui barbaros Romanosque divideret,’ in stating the
building of Hadrian’s wall. It does not necessarily imply an actual
driving north of the people, but only the extension of the province,
so that the part hostile to the Roman power came to be farther
removed.
Chalmers has treated the Roman wars in Scotland very strangely. His
narrative of the actions of Lollius Urbicus extends over seventy
closely printed pages; while for all this the actual authority is
comprised within exactly fourteen words of Julius Capitolinus. The
campaigns of Severus, by far more important, occupy just six pages;
and yet for these we have the detailed narrative of two independent
historians.
Footnote 71:
The principal stations on the wall were at the following places—viz.,
West Kilpatrick, Duntocher, Castlehill, East Kilpatrick, Bemulie,
Kirkintilloch, Auchindavy, Barhill, Westerwood, Castlecary, and Rough
Castle; and as they are in general constructed partly of stone, and
some of them connected with baths and more elaborate works, they are
probably to be attributed to a later age. See a paper by David Milne
Home, Esq., in the _Trans. Roy. Soc._ vol. xxvii. part i. p. 39, for
the latest account of the wall.
Footnote 72:
Et adversus Britannos quidem Calphurnius Agricola missus
est.—(Capitolin. Mar. Aur. 8.)
Footnote 73:
In Britannia, in Germania, et in Dacia imperium ejus recusantibus
provincialibus, quae omnia ista per duces sedata sunt.—(Lamprid.
_Comm._ c. 13. Conf. Dion. 72. 8.)
Footnote 74:
Dio, 75, 76, 77; Herodian, iii. 7; Capitolin. Clod. Alb. c. 9;
Eutropius, viii. 18.
Footnote 75:
From Magh, a plain. The same word seems to enter into the name
Vacomagi.
Footnote 76:
Colonel Gurwood’s _Speeches of the Duke of Wellington_, vol. ii. p.
729.
Footnote 77:
At Habitancum, a station on Watling Street, on the south bank of the
Rede, inscriptions have been found showing that Severus restored the
gate and repaired the walls of the station. See Bruce’s _Roman Wall_,
p. 384.
Footnote 78:
These camps are as follows—viz., Wardykes, near Keithock; Raedykes,
near Stonehaven; Normandykes, on the Dee; and Raedykes, on the Ythan.
Footnote 79:
The account of the campaigns of Severus, and of the state of the
hostile nations at the time, is given at length in the two independent
narratives of Dio (as abridged by Xiphiline) and Herodian, and
therefore rests upon peculiarly firm ground. A great deal too much has
been made of the Mæatæ by previous historians. It has been stated, as
if it were a name in general use and applied to the tribes between the
walls during the whole period of the Roman occupation of Britain; but
the fact is that the Mæatæ are mentioned by Dio alone, and on this
occasion only. We never hear of them before or after. Innes and
Chalmers talk of the Mæatæ _or_ Midland Britons (that fatal _or_ of
historians implying an identity assumed but not proved), as if there
were some analogy between the names. There is none. The term Midland
Britons nowhere occurs, and the root of the name Mæatæ is probably the
word for a plain, nearly the same in Welsh and Gaelic—Maes, Magh. That
both nations were in Caledonia is plain, independently of the position
that the wall alluded to by Dio is the wall between the Forth and the
Clyde, for Dio styles them both ‘the inhabitants of that part of
Britain which is hostile to us,’ that is, extra-provincial. Moreover,
Dio’s expression ‘advanced into Caledonia,’ is the equivalent of
Herodian’s, ‘he passed beyond the rivers and fortresses that defended
the Roman territory.’ That Severus constructed roads and built bridges
is emphatically stated by both Dio and Herodian, and it is to him
alone that the classical historians attribute such works in Britain.
Footnote 80:
The Horesti are mentioned in the inscription noticed in chap. i., Note
^{52}. The other inscription is as follows—‘In H.D.D. Baioli et
vexillarii Collegio Victoriensium signiferorum Genum de suo fecerunt
viii. kal. Octobr. Presente et Albino Cos.’ which places it in 239.
Footnote 81:
That Severus built or had reconstructed a wall in Britain rests upon
the direct authority of Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, Spartian, Orosius,
and Eusebius. Spartian, who wrote in 280, says (c. 18), ‘Britanniam,
quod maximum ejus imperii decus est, muro per transversam insulam
ducto, utrimque ad finem oceani munivit.’ Unfortunately he does not
give the length of the wall, which would have indicated its position;
but he also says (c. 22), ‘Post murum aut vallum missum in Britannia,
quum ad proximam mansionem rediret, non solum victor, sed etiam in
aeternum _pace fundata_;’ which shows that it was after his expedition
into Caledonia; and it is rather remarkable that at Cramond—the
proxima mansio—behind the wall of Antoninus, was found a medal of
Severus, having on the reverse the inscription, ‘fundator pacis.’
Aurelius Victor, who wrote 360, says, ‘His majora aggressus Britanniam
quae ad ea utilis erat, pulsis hostibus, muro munivit, per transversam
insulam ducto, utrimque ad finem oceani’ (_De Caes._ 20). And again:
‘Hic in Britannia vallum per triginta duo passuum millia a mari ad
mare deduxit’ (_Epit._ 40). And Eutropius, who wrote at the same time,
says, ‘Novissimum bellum in Britannia habuit: utque receptas
provincias omni securitate muniret, vallum per 32 millia passuum a
mari ad mare deduxit’ (viii. 19).
Both these writers place the construction of the vallum after the war,
and if it was thirty-two Roman miles in length, it can only have
extended across the peninsula between the Forth and the Clyde.
Orosius, who wrote in 417, says, ‘Severus victor in Britannias defectu
pene omnium sociorum trahitur. Ubi magnis gravibusque praeliis saepe
gestis, receptam partem insulae a caeteris indomitis gentibus vallo
distinguendam putavit. Itaque magnam fossam firmissimumque vallum,
crebris insuper turribus communitum, per centum triginta et duo millia
passuum a mari ad mare duxit.’ Eusebius, as reported by St. Jerome,
says, ‘Severus in Britannos bellum transfert, ubi, ut receptas
provincias ab incursione barbarica faceret securiores, vallum per 132
passuum millia a mari ad mare duxit.’
The length here given of 132 Roman miles is as inconsistent with the
distance between the Tyne and the Solway, as it is with that between
the Forth and the Clyde. Horsley, who considered that the earthen
vallum between the Tyne and the Solway was the work of Hadrian, and
the murus or wall which runs parallel to it, the work of Severus,
supposed that in the original MS. of these writers the distance had
been written LXXXII and that C had been written by mistake for L,
which would reduce the distance to eighty-two miles; but no MS.
supports this conjecture, and Mr. Bruce, in his work on the wall,
clearly establishes that both are the work of Hadrian.
It is inconceivable that our best historians should have gone so
entirely against the direct testimony of the older authorities. They
have in this given too much weight to the opinion of Bede, who first
declared the remains of the wall between the Tyne and the Solway to be
those of Severus’s wall, for opinion it is only, and he was naturally
biassed by the remains of the northern rampart being always before his
eyes. Nennius gives the native tradition before his time when he
quotes the passage from Eusebius, and adds, ‘et vocatur Britannico
sermone Guaul a Penguaul quae villa Scotici Cenail, Anglice vero
Peneltun dicitur, usque ad ostium fluminis Cluth et Cairpentaloch, quo
murus ille finitur rustico opere;’ thus clearly placing the wall
between the Forth and Clyde.
Moreover, placing Severus’s wall between the Tyne and Solway involves
the manifest inconsistency, that, after penetrating almost to the end
of the island, and making a peace, in which territory was ceded to
him, he abandoned the whole of his conquests, and withdrew the
frontier of the province to where it had been placed by Hadrian.
Chalmers, who saw this difficulty, supposes that he built the wall
before he commenced his conquests; but this is equally against the
direct statement of the older authorities, that it was built after he
had driven back his enemies and concluded peace. Mr. Bruce has the
pertinent remark that ‘if Severus built the wall (between Tyne and
Solway), we should expect to find frequent intimations of the fact in
the stations and mile castles. The truth, however, is that from
Wallsend to Bowness we do not meet with a single inscription belonging
to the reign of Severus, while we meet with several belonging to that
of Hadrian’ (p. 382).
Footnote 82:
Aurel. Victor. _de Caes._ 39; Eutrop. ix. 21; Orosius, vii. 25.
Footnote 83:
Eumenius, _Paneg. Const._ c. 12. Eutrop. ix. 22.
Footnote 84:
Eumen. _Pan. Const. Caes._ c. 6. Mamert. _Pan. Max. Herc._ c. 11, 12.
Footnote 85:
Comp. Eumenius, ‘prolixo crine rutilantia,’ with Tacitus, ‘rutilae
Caledoniam habitantium comae.’
Footnote 86:
Non dico Caledonum aliorumque Pictorum silvas et paludes.—Eumen. c. 7.
Footnote 87:
Appian. Alex. _Hist. Rom._ Præf. 5. Eumen. _Pan. Const._ cc. 9-19.
Footnote 88:
Sunt in Gallia cum Aquitania et Britanniis decem et octo provinciae
... in Britannia, Maxima Cæsariensis, Flavia, Britannia Prima,
Britannia Secunda.—Sextus Rufus Festus (360), _Brev._ 6.
Footnote 89:
‘Consulatu vero Constantii decies, terque Juliani, in Britanniis cum
Scotorum Pictorumque gentium ferarum excursus, rupta quiete condicta,
loca limitibus vicina vastarent, et implicaret formido provincias
præteritarum cladium congerie fessas.’—Am. Mar. B. xx. c. 1. The
sentence which follows—‘Hyemem agens apud Parisios Cæsar distractusque
in solicitudines varias, verebatur ire subsidio transmarinis; ut
retulimus ante fecisse Constantem,’ etc.—implies that there had been a
previous attack in 343, but as this part of Ammianus’s work is lost,
it is impossible to found upon it. The peace said to have been broken
probably followed it.
Footnote 90:
The early legends of Wales show that the seaboard of that district had
been exposed at an early period to the attacks of the Scots. Nennius,
in giving the early settlements of the Scots in Britain, says—‘Filii
autem Liethan obtinuerunt in regione Demetorum’ (that is South Wales),
‘et in aliis regionibus, id est, Guir et Cetgueli, donec expulsi sunt
a Cuneda et a filiis ejus ab omnibus Britannicis regionibus.’ And
again—‘Scotti autem de occidente et Picti de aquilone.’ And
again—‘Mailcunus magnus rex apud Brittones regnabat, id est, in
regione Guenedotæ’ (that is, North Wales), ‘quia atavus illius, id
est, Cunedag cum filiis suis, quorum numerus octo erat, venerat prius
de parte sinistrali, id est, de regione quæ vocatur Manau Guotodin
centum quadraginta sex annis antequam Mailcun regnaret et Scottos cum
ingentissima clade expulerunt ab istis regionibus et nunquam reversi
sunt iterum ad habitandum.’—Nennii _Brit. Hist._
Footnote 91:
Hoc tempore (364) ... Picti Saxonesque et Scoti et Attacotti Britannos
ærumnis vexavere continuis.—Ammian. Mar. xxvi. 4.
Footnote 92:
Illud tamen sufficiet dici, quod eo tempore Picti in duas gentes
divisi, Dicalidonas et Vecturiones, itidemque Attacotti, bellicosa
hominum natio, et Scotti, per diversa vagantes, multa
populabantur.—Ammian. Mar. xxvii. 8, 9.
The ‘Caledonii’ of Dio we know were the most northerly of the two
nations; and the ‘Dicalidonæ’ of Ammianus must have extended along the
coast bounded by the Deucaledonian Sea of Ptolemy.
Footnote 93:
Ille leves Mauros, nec falso nomine Pictos
Edomuit, Scotumque vago mucrone sequutus,
Fregit Hyperboreas remis audacibus undas (vii. 54).
Ille Caledoniis posuit qui castra pruinis ...
... Maduerunt Saxone fuso
Orcades: incaluit Pictorum sanguine Thule:
Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis Ierne (viii. 26).
It has generally been supposed that the province had at this time only
extended to the wall between the Solway and the Tyne, and that
Theodosius added the additional territory, which now for the first
time became a province under the name of Valentia. But the words of
the historian are directly opposed to this: ‘Recuperatamque
provinciam, quæ in ditionem concesserat hostium, ita reddiderat statui
pristino.’—Am. Mar. B. xxviii. c. 3.
Footnote 94:
The Notitia Imperii, compiled subsequently to this expedition, has the
following bodies of Atecotti in the Roman army who were stationed in
Gaul:—
Atecotti.
Atecotti juniores Gallieani.
Atecotti Honoriani seniores.
Atecotti Honoriani juniores.—
Not. Dig., _ed._ Böcking.
St. Jerome says that he saw in Gaul the Atticotts, a British nation,
which implies that they were inhabitants of Britain. He says (_Adv.
Her._ ii.), ‘Quid loquar de cæteris nationibus, quum ipse
adolescentulus in Gallia viderim Atticotos, gentem Britannicam,
humanis vesci carnibus.’ As St. Jerome says that he was then
‘adolescentulus,’ and was born in the year 340, it is supposed that
this could not have been later than 355; but this is a mistake arising
from overlooking the lax sense in which Jerome uses the word
‘adolescentulus,’ which he stretches into very mature age. He uses the
expressions of ‘puer’ and ‘adolescens’ for himself when he was at
least thirty years old. St. Jerome was in Gaul at only one period of
his life, and that we know from other circumstances must have been
about the period of Theodosius’s conquest. That the Atecotti were
inhabitants of the district between the walls appears from the fact
that they only joined the invading tribes after the latter had been
four years in possession of that territory; and that no sooner was it
again wrested from the invaders by Theodosius, than we find them
enlisted in the Roman army.
Footnote 95:
The three bodies of infantry were the Victores Juniores Britanniciani,
the Primani Juniores, and Secundani Juniores. The six bodies of
cavalry, the Equites Catafractarii Juniores, the Equites Scutarii
Aureliaci, the Equites Honoriani Seniores, the Equites Stablesiani,
the Equites Syri, and the Equites Taifali. The Equites Catafractarii
were stationed at Morbium, supposed by Horsley to be Templeburgh on
the south bank of the river Don. The provinces are twice given in the
Notitia, and the order is the same in both—Maxima Cæsariensis,
Valentia, Britannia Prima, Britannia Secunda, Flavia Cæsariensis. The
position usually assigned to these provinces rests entirely upon the
authority of the spurious Richard of Cirencester, and involves the
supposition that when Constantine divided the provinces into four, he
substituted the name of Maxima Cæsariensis for that of Lower Britain,
and divided Upper Britain into three provinces, forming the district
of Wales into a separate province called Britannia Secunda; but if the
order in the Notitia is geographical, and proceeds from north to
south, Maxima Cæsariensis is the most northerly, then Valentia and
Britannia Prima extend across the island from west to east. Then south
of them Britannia Secunda, and farther south Flavia Cæsariensis; and
thus, before Valentia was formed, Maxima Cæsariensis and Britannia
Prima would represent what had been Lower Britain, and the Dux
Britanniæ would command the troops within it; Britannia Secunda and
Flavia Cæsariensis what had been Upper Britain, and the Comes tractus
maritimi, the troops within it. The new province would be formed in
the west to meet the invasion in a new quarter from a new people, the
Scots; and a new commander, the Comes Britanniarum, or Count of the
two Britannias, would be placed there to protect the western frontier.
Footnote 96:
Incursantes Pictos et Scotos Maximus strenue superavit.—Prosper.
Aquit. _Gratian._ iv.
Footnote 97:
... Quæ Saxona frenat
Vel Scotum legio ... (xxxi. 89).
Me quoque vicinis pereuntem gentibus, inquit,
Munivit Stilichon.... (xxii. 250).
Venit et extremis legio prætenta Britannis
Quæ Scoto dat fræna truci, ferroque notatas
Perlegit exsangues Picto moriente figuras
... Ne tela timerem
Scotica, ne Pictum tremerem, ne litore toto
Prospicerem dubiis venturum Saxona ventis (xxii. 253).
Footnote 98:
Of the four bodies of Attecotti in the Roman army, the first two were
those probably enrolled by Theodosius, and seen by St. Jerome in Gaul.
The two last, which are termed Honoriani, must, from their name, have
been enrolled by Stilicho, the minister of Honorius. Orosius called
the latter ‘Barbari ... qui quondam in fœdus recepti atque in militiam
adlecti Honoriaci vocabantur’ (Oros. vii. 40). Thus, on the two
occasions in which the territory between the walls was recovered,
Attecotti were enrolled in the Roman army. They were Barbari who
ravaged Britain, when the Barbarians occupied this part of the
province. They were ‘in fœdus recepti et in militiam adlecti’ when the
Romans recovered it—a combination only applicable to the
half-provincial half-independent tribes between the walls; and they
were probably the same people whom Ptolemy called the Ottedeni and
Gadeni, who extended from the southern wall to the Firth of Forth. The
same word seems to enter into the composition of the names Ottedeni
and Attecotti.
Footnote 99:
The army is mentioned in Britain in 406. Stilicho was consul the
preceding year. The Notitia Imperii refers to a state of matters after
Theodosius, for the province of Valentia is mentioned, and the army
there described must have been in Britain at this time.
Footnote 100:
Adversus hos Constantinus Constantem filium suum, proh dolor! ex
monacho Cæsarem factum, cum barbaris quibusdam, qui quondam in fœdus
recepti atque in militiam adlecti, Honoriaci vocabantur, in Hespanias
misit.—Orosius, vii. 40.
Footnote 101:
This account of the usurpation of Constantine, and its consequences,
is taken from Zosimus and Olympiodorus, two contemporary historians.
The opinion generally entertained that the Roman troops returned to
Britain after the year 410 rests upon no direct authority, and is
opposed to the testimony of those contemporary historians. Mr. Bruce,
in his _Roman Wall_, makes the pertinent remark (43): ‘The series of
coins found in the stations of the north of England, and in the camps
and Roman cities of the south, extends from the earlier reigns of the
Empire down to the times of Arcadius and Honorius, and then ceases.
Any legion coming later must have been destitute of treasure.’
The mistake has arisen from the false chronology of the invasions of
the Scots and Picts, and of the assistance of the Romans in repelling
them, applied to the narrative of Gildas. No dates are given in the
work of Gildas; but if the mind is disabused of preconceived
conceptions in this respect, it is impossible to compare Gildas’s
narrative with the notices of the legion sent by Stilicho, and of the
army which elected Constantine, the attack which followed, and the
repelling of the invaders by the provincial Britons, without seeing
the absolute identity of the events.
The following comparison will show this more clearly:—
Roman and Greek Authors. Narrative of Gildas.
383 Maximus revolts. Revolt of Maximus, who
withdraws the army with the
youth from Britain.
387 Withdraws Roman army from
Britain.
396 A legion sent by Stilicho, who First devastation of Picts and
drive back Picts and Scots, Scots. Britons apply for
and garrison wall. assistance. A legion sent, who
build northern wall.
402 Legion withdrawn. Legion withdrawn.
Second devastation of Picts and
Scots.
Britons again apply for
assistance.
406 A Roman army in Britain — Roman troops sent, who fortify
stationed ‘per lineam valli.’ southern wall.
407 Constantine withdraws Roman Roman troops withdrawn, ‘never
army. to return.’
Picts seize up to wall.
Break through wall and ravage.
409 Gerontius invites Barbarians. Provincials take courage and
Honorius frees province. repel them.
Provincials raise and repel Vortigern invites Saxons.
invaders.