The Picts are not mentioned by Ptolemy. They appear to have been an agricultural and sea-faring people who (c. a.d. 300) engaged in trade and piracy. A flood of light has been thrown on the Pictish problem by Professor W. J. Watson, Edinburgh.[97] He shows that when Agricola invaded Scotland (a.d. 85) the predominant people were the Caledonians. Early in the third century the Caledonians and Mæatæ—names which included all the tribes north of Hadrian's Wall—were so aggressive that Emperor Septimus Severus organized a great expedition against them. He pressed northward as far as the southern shore of the Moray Firth, and, although he fought no battle, lost 50,000 men in skirmishes, &c. The Caledonians and Mæatæ rose again, and Severus was preparing a second expedition when he died at York in a.d. 211. His son, Caracalla, withdrew from Scotland altogether. The Emperor Constantius, who died at York in a.d. 306, had returned from an expedition, not against the Caledonians, but against the Picts. The Picts were beginning to become prominent. In 360 they had again to be driven back. They had then become allies of the Scots from Ulster, who were mentioned in a.d. 297 by the orator Eumenius, as enemies of the Britons in association with the Picti. Professor Watson, drawing on Gaelic evidence, dates the first settlement of the Scots in Argyll "about a.d. 180".
In 368 the Caledonians were, like the Verturiones, a division of the Picts. Afterwards their tribal name disappeared. That the Picts and Caledonians were originally separate peoples is made clear by the statement of a Roman orator who said: "I do not mention the woods and marshes of the Caledonians, the Picts, and others". In 365 the Pecti, Saxons, Scots, and Atecotti harassed the Britons. Thus by the fourth century the Picts had taken the place of the Caledonians as the leading tribe, or as the military aristocrats of a great part of Scotland, the name of which, formerly Caledonia, came to be Pictland, Pictavia.
Who then were the Picts? Professor Watson shows that the racial name is in old Norse "Pettr", in Old English "Peohta", and in old Scots "Pecht"[98] These forms suggest that the original name was "Pect". Ammianus refers to the "Pecti". In old Welsh "Peith-wyr" means "Pict-men" and "Peith" comes from "Pect". The derivation from the Latin "pictus" (painted) must therefore be rejected. It should be borne in mind in this connection that the Ancient Britons stained their bodies with woad. The application of the term "painted" to only one section of them seems improbable. "Pecti", says Professor Watson, "cannot be separated etymologically from Pictones, the name of a Gaulish tribe on the Bay of Biscay south of the Loire, near neighbours of the Veneti. Their name shows the same variation between Pictones and Pectones. We may therefore claim Pecti as a genuine Celtic word. It is of the Cymric or Old British and Gaulish type, not of the Gaelic type, for Gaelic has no initial P, while those others have." Gildas (c. a.d. 570), Bede (c. a.d. 730), and Nennius (c. a.d. 800) refer to the Picts as a people from the north of Scotland. Nennius says they occupied Orkney first. The legends which connect the Picts with Scythia and Hercules were based on Virgil's mention of "picti Agathyrsi" and "picti Geloni" (Æneid IV, 146, Georgics, II, 115) combined with the account by Herodotus (IV, 10) of the descent of Gelonus and Agathyrsus from Hercules. Of late origin therefore was the Irish myth that the Picts from Scythia were called Agathyrsi and were descended from Gelon, son of Hercules.
There never were Picts in Ireland, except as visitors. The theory about the Irish Picts arose by mistranslating the racial name "Cruithne" as "Picts". Communities of Cruithne were anciently settled in the four provinces of Ireland, but Cruithne means Britons not Picts.
Valentine
A SCOTTISH "BROCH" (Mousa, Shetland Isles)
Compare with Sardinian Nuraghe, page [136].
The ancient name of Great Britain was Albion, while Ireland was in Greek "Ierne", and in Latin "Iubernia" (later "Hibernia"). The racial name was applied by Pliny to Albion and Hibernia when he referred to the island group as "Britanniæ". Ptolemy says that Albion is "a Britannic isle" and further that Albion (England and Scotland) was an island "belonging to the Britannic Isles". Ireland was also a Britannic isle. It is therefore quite clear that the Britons were regarded as the predominant people in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and that the verdict of history includes Ireland in the British Isles. The Britons were P-Celts, and their racial name "Pretan-Pritan" became in the Gaelic language of the Q-Celts "Cruithen", plural "Cruithne".
In Latin the British Isles are called after their inhabitants, the rendering being "Britanni", while in Greek it is "Pretannoi" or "Pretanoi". As Professor W. J. Watson and Professor Sir J. Morris Jones, two able and reliable philologists, have insisted, the Greek form is the older and more correct, and the Latin form is merely an adaptation of the Greek form.