CHAPTER II.
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.
[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.