230 



The Picts. 



large and robust form of limbs, while the Silures, who inhabited ft 



what is now called South Wales (and formerly the maritime coasts ) ft 



of South Britain), are declared to be of a Spanish race, from their ft 



swarthy dark skins and curly hair. a ] 



"After Tacitus " says Betham, "we hear little of the Caledonians ! \u 



by that name, for, it may almost be said, that they disappear from H 



history. At the period of the decline of the Roman power in 0 ; 



Britain, the country which they inhabited was in the possession of Id 

 a people called the Picts, because they painted their bodies, the very 



reason their ancestors received the name of Britons from the Phceni- 8ej 



cians. It would appear, therefore, that the Phoenician Gaelic inva- or 



ders exterminated or expelled the Cymbric Britons from the South i 



of Britain and Ireland; those who escaped were driven to the north, \ j a 



where they were found by Agricola many centuries afterwards, j \ 



and received a name from the Romans, exactly indicative of that [ 



they obtained on their first discovery by the Phoenicians. " A p 



These BelgaB are supposed in time to have become amalgamated 



with the Romans, and to have acquired their customs and language. ! \ 



Gildas, when he describes Cuneglas, speaks of the Latin as his own j \ 



language, " In lingua nostra lanio fulve;" and other authorities j j 



inform us that the Britons boasted of their knowledge of the Latin I t, 



language : Tacitus remarks that the Britons in Domitian's time, t 



"affected even the eloquence of the Latin tongue/ ■ \ 



The British Cymbri after many engagements with Caesar were ] 

 ultimately driven by him towards the Northern Provinces, and t a 

 finally founded a Pictish Kingdom in Caledonia or Scotland, in the , 

 district of Strathclyde near Glasgow and Dumbarton, having Edin- 

 burgh or Dunedin as their capital. Under the name of Picts these i , 

 Cymbri long retained possession of the Southern division of ] 

 Scotland, and engaged with Agricola near the Grampian Hills, as 

 recorded by Tacitus in Agricola. The Welsh have constantly af- 

 firmed (that is, the better informed of their writers) that they came 

 from Scotland, and are descendants of the Strathclyde Britons, who 

 were Caledonians or Picts. These Picts or Caledonians we 

 have seen, were regarded by the Romans as the same race, and the 



1 Betham, p. 329. 



