Chapter II: The Roman Province in Scotland (2)

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).