Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland

HISTORY.
still as the Atecotti, and Anally as the Picts of Gallo-
way. The Vernieomes seem to be the same as the
Meat*; and the Goidelic portion of the Caledonii, Va-
comagi, and Vernieomes, south of the Mounth, are pro-
bably the Caledonii of Tacitus. After the construction
of the so-called Antoninus' Wall between the Clyde and
the Forth the Damnonii were cut in two, and the por-
tion of the tribe to the north as well as the inhabitants
of Fife were probably the body that subsequently appears
as the Horestii or Borestii, again as the Vecturiones or
Verturiones, and finally as the Men of Fortrenn.
We have already seen that the Brigantes, the greatest
and most powerful tribe of the Brythons, were finally
reduced to subjection in a.d. 70, the conquest being
effected by Petilius Cerealis under the Emperor Ves-
pasian after a severe and bloody contest; and thus part
of the south of Scotland became part of the Roman
Empire. Before Petilius was, however, able to con-
solidate the newly acquired dominion, he was succeeded
by Julius Frontinus; and as all his attention was given
to a war against the Silures in Wales no fresh action
in the north was taken till a.d. 79, when Agricola, who
had now assumed the chief command in Britain, led
his forces northward and constructed stations in the
Brigantian territory, while in the following year he
penetrated the territory of the Selgovas, and, passing
northwards by Lanarkshire, subdued the Damnonii to
the south of the Firth of Clyde, and seems to have
pushed on by Stirling as far as the Firth of Tay; but
whether he spent the winter in advanced positions be-
yond the Forth, or retired to the south side for winter
quarters, seems somewhat doubtful, probably the latter.
At all events the summer of 81 seems to have been
spent in constructing a chain of forts across the neck
of land between the Firths of Forth and Clyde, so as to
protect the greater portion of the newly acquired terri-
tory from the incursions of the northern tribes. In
83-86 he again advanced to the north, and though in
the last year he gained a great victory at Mons Gran-
pius, probably near the junction of the Isla and the
Tay, he was unable to follow up his victory, and re-
crossing the Tay, returned southward, while the fleet
sailed onward round the north. Agricola was recalled
in 87, and under his successors the district north of the
Forth and Clyde again regained independeaee, while
during the next thirty years even the country to the
south seems to have become practically independent,
for when Hadrian, in 120, visited Britain, he considered
that the northern limit of Roman power should be drawn
back to a line between the Solway and the English Tyne,
and so formidable does he seem to have considered the
attacks likely to be made from the north, that he erected
along the border a massive stone wall, strengthened by
a ditch on its northern side, and an earthen rampart
on the south, with stations, castles, and watch-towers.
In the reign of Antonine, however, in 139, Lollius
Urbicus, who had been sent for this special purpose,
again reduced the tribes to the north of Hadrian's Wall,
and constructed a massive earthen rampart between the
Firths of Forth and Clyde, probably along the line of
Agricola's chain of forts. Formidable as this defence
was, the northern tribes broke through it in 182, and
were not finally driven back till two years later. A
fresh outbreak in 207 drew the Emperor Severus him-
self to the scene of contest, and in 208 he arrived in
Britain, and marching north with a large army, pushed
vigorously forward, clearing and forming roads and
bridging rivers, so as to render the whole territory of
the hostile tribes more accessible at all future times.
He penetrated as far as the Moray Firth, and though
he fought no pitched battle, he is said to have lost an
immense number of men, partly in consequence of hard-
ship, and partly through the tactics of the natives, who
1728
harassed his army continually. His operations were so
far successful that he compelled the Caledonii and Meats
to make peace and to give up some territory north of
the rampart formed by Lollius Urbicus, to which Seve-
rus now added an immense ditch on the northern side,
as well as additional posts; but he had hardly returned
to York when a fresh outbreak took place, and a war of
extermination was only prevented by his death in 211,
his son Antoninus at once concluding a peace with the
rebellious tribes. Except for the brief usurpation of
power by Carausius and his follower Allectus, who seems
to have been supported by the Caledonii, almost nothing
is heard of Scotland till 360, when the northern tribes
began once more to make formidable attacks on the
territory within the walls, the Picts — as they are now
called — of the north being joined by Scots from Ireland
and assisted by the Atecotti, whose territory lay within
the Roman province, and by the Saxons who had since
the latter part of the third century made frequent
descents on the east coast. They were driven back by
Theodosius in 369, but on the withdrawal of the Roman
troops in 387 the Scots and Picts renewed their attacks;
and though they were beaten back by a legion sent by
Honorius to guard the northern wall, this was no sooner
withdrawn in 402 than their assaults were renewed.
They were again driven back by fresh Roman troops
in 406, but the respite of the Romanised Britons was
brief, for the legions were finally withdrawn in the fol-
lowing year, and in 410 the Roman occupation of Britain
came for ever to an end, and the native tribes were left
to fashion the destiny of their land in their own way.
The ensuing period of Scottish history is quite a
blank, but the various tribes, or rather confederations
of tribes, seem to have engaged in a hard struggle for
mastery, and when we again find authentic record,
somewhere about the beginning of the 7th century,
Scotland was divided into four kingdoms held by four
different nations, viz., the Picts, Scots, Britons, and
Angles. The first held by far the greater portion of
the country, their realm extending from the extreme
north down to a line drawn through the island of Mull,
up Loch Linnhe, eastward from the head of Loch
Leven to Drumalban, and thence along this ridge to
the line of the Forth, the river and firth of which
formed its extreme southern limit. They held also
the Orkneys and the greater portion of the Hebrides,
and in what may be called the debatable tract to the
south of the Firth of Forth they had settlements about
Edinburgh in what was known as Manaw — where they
have left traces of their possessions in the name of the
Pentland Hills— and again farther to the south-west
in the modern counties of Wigtown and Kirkcudbright,
where dwelt the Niduarian Picts or the Picts of Gallo-
way, the descendants of the old Goidelic Selgovse and
Novantae. The main body of the nation to the north
of the line of the Firth of Forth was divided into the
Northern Picts to the north of the Mounth, and the
Southern Picts between that and the Firth of Forth.
The former must have contained, as already noticed, a
very considerable admixture of the pre-Celtic inhabit-
ants, while the latter were probably almost purely
Goidelic in race, with in the south-west the addition
of a district where the inhabitants were of Brythonic
descent, and figure prominently in Pictish history as
the Men of Fortrenn. How much the different races
had, however, become blended into one great nation is
shown by the fact that in the end of the 6th century
we find the central seat of power and the residence of
the king, Brude mac Mailcon, in the neighbourhood
of Inverness, while his successor, Gartnait, transferred
it to Abernethy on the Tay, probably from some more
immediate personal connection with the southern por-
tion of the race, for nothing is known of any revolution.