2S6 SCOTLAND. 



first broke over it ) between the Clyde and Forth, which was first maiv 

 ked out by Agricola, and completed by Antoninus Pius, is still dis- 

 cernible, as are several Roman camps in the neighbourhood. Agri- 

 cola's camp, at the bottom af the Grampian Hills, is a striking remain 

 of Roman antiquity. It is situated at Ardoch, in Perthshire, and is 

 generally thought to have been the camp occupied by Agrioola, before 

 he fought the bloody battle, recorded by Tacitus, with the Caledonian 

 king Galgacus, who was defeated. Some writers think that this re- 

 main of antiquity at Ardoch was, on account of the numerous Roman 

 coins and inscriptions found near it, a Roman castellum or fort Be 

 that as it may, it certainly is the most entire and best preserved of any 

 Roman antiquity of that kind in North Britain, having no less than five 

 rows of ditches and six ramparts on the' south side ; and of the four 

 gates which lead into the area, three are very distinct and plain, viz. 

 the prsetoria, decuroana, and dextra. 



The Roman temple, or building in the form of the pantheon at Rome, 

 or of the dome of St. Paul's at London, stood upon the banks of the 

 river Carron in Stirlingshire, but was barbarously demolished by a 

 neighbouring Goth, for the purpose of mending a nail-pond Its. 

 height was twenty-two feet, and its external circumference at the base 

 was eighty-eight feet ; so that upon the whole it was one of the most 

 complete Roman antiquities in the world. It is thought to have been 

 built by rigricola, or some of his successors, as a temple to the god 

 Terminus, as it stood near the pr^tenture which boundeel the Roman 

 empire in Britain to the north. Near it are some artificial conical 

 Kiounds of earth, which stili retain the name of Duni-pace or Duni- 

 pacis ; which serve to prove that there was a kind of solemn compro- 

 mise between the Romans and the Caledonians, that the former should 

 not extend their empire farther to the northward. 



Innumerable are the coins, urns, utensils, inscriptions, and other re- 

 mains of the Romans, that have been found in different parts of Scot- 

 land : some of them to the north of the wall, where, however, it does not 

 appear that they made any establishment. By the inscriptions found 

 near the wail, the names of the legions that built it, and how far they 

 carried it on, may be learned The remains of Roman highways are 

 frequent in the southern parts. 



Danish camps and fortifications are easily discernible in several 

 northern counties, and are known by their square figures and difficult 

 situations, borne houses or stupendous fabrics remain in Ross-shire ; 

 but whether they are Danish, Pictish, or Scottish, does not appear. 

 They are, perhaps, Norwegian or Scandinavain structures, and built 

 about the fifth century, to favour the descents of that people upon those 

 coasts. 



Two Pictish monuments, as they have been supposed to be, of a very 

 extraordinary construction, were lately standing in Scotland; one of 

 them at Abernethy in Perthshire, the other at Brechin in Angus ; both 

 of them are columns, hollow in the inside, and without the stair-case ; 

 that of Brechin is the most entire, being covered at the top with a spiral 

 roof of stone, with three or four windows above the cornice ; it consists 

 of sixty regular courses of hewn free-stone, laid circularly, and reg^ 

 alarly tapering towards the top. If these columns are really Pictish, 

 that people must have had among them architects who far exceeded 

 those of any coeval monuments to be found in Europe, as they have all 

 the appearance of an order ; and the building is neat, and in the Roman 



