To these may be added the following meagre list of Potters' Stamps,—all that I have been able to recover pertaining to Roman Scotland. This, however, arises from no paucity of materials. Mr. C. K. Sharp informs me that in his early years he remembers to have seen large accumulations of broken Samian ware and other Roman pottery dug up at Birrenswork. The same is also known to have occurred both at Inveresk and Cramond; and during the progress of construction of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in 1841, a mass of debris about twelve feet deep was cut through on the site of the Castlecary Fort, which led to the exposure of a quantity of broken pottery, including some very fine fragments of embossed Samian ware, now in the possession of the Earl of Zetland, the owner of the ground. Had the person entrusted by the noble proprietor to take care of any relics that might be discovered, been sufficiently aware of the interest now attached to the potters' stamps, a large addition to the Scottish list would probably have been the result. As it was, however, he only served effectually to prevent this being accomplished. My friend, Mr. John Buchanan, a zealous Scottish antiquary, who visited Castlecary for the purpose, was prohibited from touching anything within the charmed circle; and, accordingly, these evidences of Roman art are mostly buried below the railway embankment, for rediscovery by other generations, when railway viaducts shall be as obsolete relics as Roman vallums now are. Within the area of the station a neatly cut centurial inscription was discovered, and is now preserved by the Earl of Zetland. It bears the inscription,—COHORTIS SEXTÆ CENTURIA ANTONII ARATI, thus abbreviated:

CHO VI
Ↄ ANTO
ARATI.

It is only very recently, even in England, that the names of the potters stamped on Roman fictile ware, have attracted much attention or been carefully recorded. Through the exertions of Mr. Charles Roach Smith and other zealous archæologists, we are now in possession of ample means for comparing new discoveries with the potters' stamps of London, Colchester, and York; but no collection of Scoto-Roman pottery exists, so far as I am aware, with the exception of the few specimens in the Museum of Scottish Antiquaries. The following apology for a Scottish list must therefore meanwhile suffice. It may perhaps form the nucleus of a more ample one at a subsequent period, by which to enable us to test the question of native or foreign manufacture, and to trace out the sources from whence the Roman colonists of Britain imported their finer fictile wares. The Scottish Museum furnishes a few curious specimens from Castlecary, some of which are given here in fac-simile. The first occurs on fine black ware, and looks like the imperfect attempt of some native or provincial potter to imitate a Roman stamp which he probably could not read. The second and third may be most fitly described as cuneiform. The larger of the two is on thin unglazed red ware. The fourth is on a patera of fine glazed Samian ware, and furnishes a good example of the mode of joining the letters together, with which English antiquaries are familiar, not only on the pottery, but also on the altars and inscribed tablets of the Anglo-Roman period. All these impressions are clear and distinct, so that their peculiarities are designed. Two of the other Castlecary stamps are furnished me by Mr. Buchanan, and the remainder are in my own possession, having been picked up in the neighbourhood of the railway embankment since its completion. For those from Newstead I am chiefly indebted to Dr. J. A. Smith.

Castlecary.
PATIRATI OFSACIRAPO
VNFO IO (?)[447]AESTIV M
IΛIVPRISCVS F
LIBER IMΛ · I · BIN · I · M
IRSECΛAHIM
WILIIVI[ΛEST][V]M

A handle of a Scoto-Roman amphora in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, the exact locality of the discovery of which is unknown, is stamped with the letters M. P. F. The Roman fictilia in the same collection also include terra cotta lamps from several Scottish localities. One of singular type, in the form of a broad leaf, with the veins strongly marked in relief, was found at Chester Knowes, near Chirnside, Berwickshire, the site as is believed of a temporary camp. Another is from Castlecary, and a third from Birrens. Besides these, various urns, lachrymatories, fragments of mortaria, amphoræ, and Samian, and other wares, all suffice to shew the correspondence of the Roman fictile ware of Scotland and England.

Such are some of the traces of the Roman occupation of Scotland. If we believe the direct statements of the few classic historians who have thought our northern region worthy of notice, the natives were in a state of extreme degradation and barbarism. Yet from the same authors we are able to discover that these barbarians fought in chariots, were armed with swords, lances, bucklers, and poniards, and were capable of offering the most formidable resistance to the veteran legions. Still more, we find that the Caledonians never settled down either in contented peace or in passive despair under the Roman yoke. Experience of the legions did not intimidate them; and at length Septimius Severus, one of the ablest of the Roman emperors, was compelled to employ the arts of the diplomatist rather than of the soldier ere he abandoned them once more to their wild freedom. We may indeed question if this remote region could be worth the labour of conquest; but when once occupied we see in the remains of Roman works abundant reasons why the conquerors should wish to retain it. Our chief inquiry however is, to what extent did this brief and partial Roman occupation affect the native manners and arts? The answer, I think, must be, that its influence was slight, partial, and transitory. Like an unwonted tide, the flood of Roman invasion swept beyond its natural limits, disturbing and unsettling many things long unaffected by change. But the tide ebbed as rapidly as it had flowed, and at most only helped to prepare the soil for a new growth. Neither the manners, the faith, nor the social habits of these foreign occupants of the country could be at all acceptable to the natives, though their superior arts and military skill would not fail to be appreciated, and must have been turned to good account. As, however, we have traced earlier arts and discoveries passing onward from the south to the tribes of the north, and effectually revolutionizing all their primitive habits: so, too, the increasing civilisation of the Anglo-Roman provinces must have extended its fruits beyond the wall of Severus, and effected a more immediate and rapid change than the influence of the same Roman civilisation is seen to have done on Ireland or Denmark, where no legionary invaders ever constructed their intrenchments or established their colonies.

By far the most remarkable native structure which appears to be traceable to the influence and example of Roman arts is the "Deil's Dike," a vast rampart of earth and stone strengthened by a fosse, which passes across many miles of country, through Galloway and Nithsdale. This singular British vallum has excited much less attention than its magnitude and great extent seem to demand. It has been traced through a much larger district of country than the whole length of the Antonine Wall; and though it lacks the historic interest of that structure, and the valuable legionary inscriptions found along its line, it is nevertheless a remarkable evidence of combined action and primitive engineering skill. Mr. Joseph Train remarks of it,—"As it passes from Torregan to Dranandow, it runs through a bog, and is only perceptible by the heather growing long and close on the top of it; whereas, on each side the soil only produces rushes and moss. Near the centre of the bog I caused the peat to be cleared away close to the dike, and thereby found the foundation to be several feet below the surface, which appeared to me a sure indication of its great antiquity." This ancient wall measures eight feet broad at the base, and is mostly built of rough unhewn blocks of moorstone or trap. In districts where stone is more inaccessible it is constructed of stones mixed with earth and clay, and at some few points it is entirely of earth. It has been strengthened at intervals with fortified stations, like the Roman walls from which its model is supposed to be derived. One of these, on the height above Glendochart, is a circular fort 190 yards in diameter. Another fort is situated on a well-chosen, commanding height, called the Hill of Ochiltree, on the east side of Loch Maberrie. The fosse, which is still traceable along a great part of the wall, is on its north side, from whence we are justified in inferring that the vallum was reared by the natives of the southern districts. It is, of course, impossible to assign the age or the builders of this ancient structure with absolute certainty. History is utterly silent on the subject; and it is a fact well worthy of note, in reference to previous remarks on the possibility of many noteworthy deeds having passed unchronicled to oblivion, that everything connected with this defensive erection is involved in the darkest obscurity. The very name which ascribes its origin to the Master Fiend shews how completely tradition has lost every clue to its builders. Yet the civilisation which led to such combined exertion as was needed both for the erection and defence of such an extent of wall must have been considerable. History has doubtless burdened itself with the charge of many meaner themes. The correspondence of the general design to the two Roman walls seems very clearly to point to its erection by the southern Britons after the departure of the Romans, when we know that they frequently suffered from inroads of the northern tribes. The circular forts along the line of the Deil's Dike also furnish a curious link connecting it at once with the older Roman and native military works, while they present a striking contrast to the camps and wall stations of the Roman legionaries.