Fig. 2. From a Sculptured Stone found at St. Andrews.
These Caledonians appear to have been divided into a number of tribes or clans, having little or no political connection, and almost constantly at war among themselves. It was only when a foreign foe threatened their much-prized freedom that a sense of danger forced them to unite for a time under the command of a military leader. Some writers, on the authority of Ptolemy of Alexandria, but chiefly on that of the pseudo-Richard of Cirencester,[3] give a list of the various tribes which, during the Roman period, inhabited North Britain, and define the locality which each occupied with as much exactness as they might do a modern English county. “There was one thing,” says Tacitus, “which gave us an advantage over these powerful nations, that they never consulted together for the advantage of the whole. It was rare that even two or three of them united against the common enemy.” Their whole means of subsistence consisted in the milk and flesh of their flocks and the produce of the chase. They lived in a state almost approaching to nudity; but whether from necessity or from choice cannot be satisfactorily determined. Dio represents the Caledonians as being naked, but Herodian speaks of them as wearing a partial covering. They appear, at all events, if the stone dug up at Blackness in the year 1868 (see [p. 11]), be taken as an authority, to have gone naked into battle. Their towns, which were few, consisted of huts covered with turf or skins, and for better security they were erected in the centre of some wood or morass. “What the Britons call a town,” says Cæsar, “is a tract of woody country surrounded by a vallum and ditch, for the security of themselves and cattle against the incursions of an enemy; for, when they have enclosed a very large circuit with felled trees, they build within it houses for themselves, and hovels for their cattle.”[4] Notwithstanding, perhaps owing to the scantiness of their covering, which left their bodies exposed to the rigour of a cold and variable climate, the Caledonians were a remarkably hardy race, capable of enduring fatigue, cold, and hunger to an extent which their descendants of the present day could not encounter without risk of life. They were decidedly a warlike people, and are said, like the heroes of more ancient times, to have been addicted to robbery. The weapons of their warfare consisted of small spears, long broadswords, and hand daggers; and they defended their bodies in combat by a small target or shield,—all much of the same form and construction as those afterwards used by their posterity in more modern times. It would appear from the stone above referred to that the shields of the Caledonians were oblong, with a boss in the centre, and their swords short and pointed,—not long and blunt, as represented by Tacitus. The use of cavalry appears not to have been so well understood among the Caledonians as among the more southern tribes; but in battle they often made use of cars, or chariots, which were drawn by small, swift, and spirited horses; and it is conjectured that, like those used by the southern Britons, they had iron scythes projecting from the axle. It is impossible to say what form of government obtained among these warlike tribes. When history is silent, historians should either maintain a cautious reserve or be sparing in their conjectures; but analogy may supply materials for well-grounded speculations, and it may therefore be asserted, without any great stretch of imagination, that, like most of the other uncivilized tribes we read of in history, the Northern Britons or Caledonians were under the government of a leader or chief to whom they yielded a certain degree of obedience. Dio, indeed, insinuates that the governments of these tribes were democratic; but he should have been aware that it is only when bodies of men assume, in an advanced state of civilization, a compact and united form that democracy can prevail; and the state of barbarism in which he says the inhabitants of North Britain existed at the period in question seems to exclude such a supposition. We have no certain information from any contemporary, and conjecture is therefore groundless. Later fable-loving historians and chroniclers, indeed, give lists of Kings of Scotland—or, rather, of Pictland—extending back for centuries before the Christian era, but these by general consent are now banished to the realm of myths. It is probable, as we have already said, that the Caledonians were divided into a number of independent tribes, and that each tribe was presided over by a chief, but how he obtained his supremacy it is impossible to say. We have one instance, at least, of a number of tribes uniting under one leader, viz., at the battle of Mons Grampius, when the Caledonians were commanded by a chief or leader called by Tacitus, Galgacus, “inter plures duces virtute et genere præstans.”[5] “The earliest bond of union may probably be traced to the time when they united under one common leader to resist or assail the Roman legionaries; and out of the Dux or Toshach elected for the occasion, like Galgacus, and exercising a paramount though temporary authority, arose the Ardrigh or supreme king, after some popular or ambitious chieftain had prolonged his power by successful wars, or procured his election to this prominent station for life.”[6]
Whatever may have been the relation of the members of the different tribes, and the relation of the tribes to each other, it is certain, from the general tone of the works of Tacitus and other Roman historians in which those early inhabitants of the Scottish Highlands are mentioned, that they offered a far more formidable resistance to the Roman arms than had hitherto been done by any other of the British tribes.
In personal stature, the natives of Caledonia, like those of other parts of Britain, appear to have excelled their Roman invaders, and from Tacitus we learn that those with whom his father-in-law came into contact were distinguished by ruddy locks and lusty limbs. It is also certain that for the sake of ornament, or for the purpose of making their appearance more terrible in war, they resorted to the barbarous practice of tattooing their bodies. Indeed it may be taken as a proof of their never having to any great extent come under the power and influence of Rome and Roman customs, that they retained this practice for long after the other Britons had abandoned it, and on this account, in all probability, afterwards acquired the name of Picts.
British War-Chariot.
The people whom Agricola encountered in Scotland cannot have been otherwise than tolerable proficients in the common branches of art; how else can we suppose them to have been supplied with all that matériel of war with which they are said to have appeared before him? Indolent and uninformed as were the bulk of the people, they must have had among them artificers both in wood and in iron, not unskilled in their respective trades—able to construct the body of a car—to provide for it axles of great strength—above all, able to construct the wheels and arm them with those sharp-edged instruments that were destined to cut down whatever opposed their course.[7]
Agricola, in the summer of 83, after having obtained information as to the nature of the country and the aspect of its inhabitants from exploring parties and prisoners, transported his army across the Frith of Forth to the shores of Fife by means of his fleet, and marched along the coast eastwards, keeping the fleet in sight. It cannot with certainty be ascertained at what part of the Forth this transportation of the forces took place, although some bold antiquarians assert that it must have been not far from Queensferry. The fleet, Tacitus tells us,[8] now acting, for the first time, in concert with the land-forces, proceeded in sight of the army, forming a magnificent spectacle, and adding terror to the war. It frequently happened that in the same camp were seen the infantry and cavalry intermixed with the marines, all indulging their joy, full of their adventures, and magnifying the history of their exploits; the soldier describing, in the usual style of military ostentation, the forests which he had passed, the mountains which he climbed, and the barbarians whom he put to the rout; while the sailor had his storms and tempests, the wonders of the deep, and the spirit with which he conquered winds and waves.
The offensive operations of the sixth campaign were commenced by the Caledonian Britons, who, from the higher country, made a furious attack upon the trans-Forthan fortifications, which so alarmed some of Agricola’s officers, who were afraid of being cut off from a retreat, that they advised their general to recross the Forth without delay; but Agricola resisted this advice, and made preparations for the attack which he expected would soon be made upon his army. As Agricola had received information that the enemy intended to fall upon him from various quarters, he divided his army into three bodies and continued his march. Some antiquarians have attempted to trace the route taken by each division, founding their elaborate theories on the very slender remains of what they suppose to have been Roman fortifications and encampments. As it would serve no good purpose to encumber our pages with these antiquarian conjectures, detailed accounts of which will be found in Chalmers, Stuart, Roy, and others, we shall only say that, with considerable plausibility, it is supposed that the Ninth Legion encamped on the north side of Loch Ore, about two miles south of Loch Leven in Kinross-shire. Another legion, it is said, encamped near Dunearn Hill, about a mile distant from Burntisland, near which hill are still to be seen remains of a strength called Agricola’s camp. At all events the divisions do not seem to have been very far apart, as will be seen from the following episode.