SCOTLAND (HISTORY). 



141 



down, and made their name terrible to the con- 

 querors of the world. The Romans endeavoured 

 to resist their incursions, by rearing, at different 

 periods, two walls; one between the Solway and 

 the Tyne, the other between the Forth and 

 Clyde. The first of these walls is called the wall 

 of Adrian, having been erected by that emperor on 

 his visit to Britain, about A. D. 125; the second 

 is called the wall of Antoninus, having been erected 

 during that emperor's reign, about 140. The total 

 length of the latter, which extended from Carron 

 on the Forth to Dunglass on the Clyde, was 63,980 

 yards, and it was defended by nineteen forts. The 

 whole extent of territory that lay between the walls 

 of Adrian and Antoninus, was every where intersect- 

 ed by Roman roads. But it is doubtful whether the 

 country between the northern wall and the Murray 

 firth was formally erected into a Roman province ; 

 though it was traversed by roads of communication, 

 and overawed by military stations. The Romans, 

 finding their conquests in Caledonia burdensome, 

 began to contract the lines of the empire ; and, 

 during the reign of the emperor Aurelian, evacuated 

 the military stations beyond the wall of Antoninus. 

 In A. D. 209, the emperor Severus embarked for 

 Britain, attended by his two sons and a formidable 

 army. . Upon his arrival, he repaired or rebuilt the 

 wall of Adrian, in order to protect his retreat, in 

 case of accidents. He speedily passed the northern 

 wall, and penetrated into the country of the Cale- 

 donians. Unable to oppose the obstinate attack of 

 the Romans, the fugitive Caledonians were com- 

 pelled to sue for peace, and to surrender a part of 

 their arms and a considerable portion of their terri- 

 tory. The emperor then retired beyond the wall of 

 Adrian, but the barbarians, regardless of the obli- 

 gations of a treaty, renewed hostilities, in conse- 

 quence of which Severus sent another army into 

 their country, under his son Caracalla, with orders 

 to extirpate them. Upon the death of Severus, 

 however, Caracalla concluded a treaty with the 

 Caledonians, by which he relinquished the terri- 

 tories they had recently surrendered to his father, 

 and abandoned the forts which had been erected to 

 enforce their submission. The wall of Antoninus 

 was fixed as the northern boundary of the Romans. 

 For about a century after this period, the Caledoni- 

 an tribes remained quiet. The long residence of 

 the Romans in the island had improved the rude 

 manners of the inhabitants, taught them to desire 

 and cultivate the conveniences of life, and reconciled 

 them to their language and manners. 



The emperor Constantinus, in the year 306, found 

 it necessary to repair to Britain in person, to repel 

 the attacks of the Caledonians. The Romans were 

 successful, but their general died at York. 



After the appointment and recall of Severus, and 

 of Jovian, as commanders of the Roman troops in 

 the British island, Theodosius was sent to Britain, 

 in 367, to restore tranquillity to a very disturbed 

 people. He restored, in the two campaigns of 368 

 and 369, the tranquillity of Britain, by suppressing 

 domestic insurrection, and by repelling foreign in- 

 vasion ; the thirty years' quiet of Britain which 

 ensued, bears testimony to the vigour of his arms 

 and the efficacy of his wisdom. 



During the year 398, when the Roman empire 

 was attacked without by the surrounding "tribes, 

 and enfeebled within by domestic parties, the Scots 

 from Ireland, and the Pictsfrom Caledonia, renewed 

 their depredations on the British provincials. 

 Stilicho, who supported a falling empire by the 



strength of his talent?, sent such effectual aid, as 

 enabled the governors to repel the invaders, to 

 repair the northern wall and to restore general quiet. 



The Romans finally abandoned the island in the 

 year 446, leaving the inhabitants of the more 

 southern parts a prey to the attacks of the more 

 warlike Caledonians. The former addressed a 

 letter of supplication to Rome, beseeching assist- 

 ance. " The barbarians," said they, " chase us 

 into the sea ; the sea throws us back on the bar- 

 barians; and we have only the hard choice left us of 

 perishing by the sword or by the waves." The 

 Romans, however, by this time, struggling for 

 their own existence, were unable to render succour, 

 and the Britons were forced to invite Saxons to 

 their assistance, who served to check the future in- 

 roads of the Picts. 



From the retirement of the Romans in 446 to 

 843 A. D., the Picts formed the main and most 

 powerful people who inhabited Scotland, and the 

 annals of Pictland, or Caledonia, are the only real 

 annals of ancient Scottish history. Much obscurity, 

 however, necessarily attaches itself to a period so 

 remote and barbarous. The first Pictish monarch 

 of whom authentic information exists, was Drust, 

 the son of Erk, who for a long period rendered him- 

 self terrible to the Romanised Britons. In the 

 annals of Pictland a list of the monarchs who suc- 

 ceeded him is given, to the amount of thirty-eight, 

 but as these consist merely of a succession of bar- 

 barous names, without any corresponding informa- 

 tion, it is unnecessary to repeat them here. About 

 the end of the seventh century, Elfrid, Prince of 

 Northumbria, attacked the Picts. Having crossed 

 the Forth and the Tay, he advanced into Angus as 

 far as Dunnichen, where he received a total defeat. 

 Few of the Saxons escaped, and so complete was 

 their overthrow, that the Tweed, for a short time, 

 became the northern boundary of their principality. 

 The Picts were tempted by their success to make 

 an irruption into Northumberland, but they sustain- 

 ed a defeat, and Bridei, their king, was slain. 



The country of the Picts appears to have ac- 

 quired different names, in successive periods. The 

 mountainous part of it was denominated, by the 

 first colonists, in their native speech Alban, the 

 superior height. This name, which was originally 

 applied to the hilly region that forms the west of 

 Perth and the north-west of Argyle, was, in after 

 times, extended to the whole country. In the first 

 century, the British term Celyddon, (hence Cale- 

 donia) which literally signified the coverts, was ap- 

 plied by the Roman authors to the whole country 

 on the north of the friths, though the same name 

 was confined, by the Roman geographers, to the 

 interior highlands lying northward of Alban. Both 

 of these well-known appellations were afterwards 

 applied more laxly to North-Britain. The Pictish 

 Chronicle, from the Pictish people, calls their 

 country by the analogous word, Pictavia. The 

 annals of Ulster generally speak of this country by 

 the name of Fortruin, with a slight deviation from 

 Fothir, the name of the Pictish capital. It was 

 not till about the beginning of the eleventh century, 

 or nearly two centuries after the union of the Scots 

 of Dalriad and the Picts of Caledonia, that we find 

 the names Scoti and Scotia applied to the people 

 and country generally. The universal adoption ot 

 the term Scotland from a small tribe who inhabited 

 but a small portion of its territory, cannot be very 

 satisfactorily accounted for, and it has caused much 

 confusion in the early annals of the country. 



