Stone from Antonine’s Wall. (Copied and engraved specially for the present work.)
We have no distinct mention of the Caledonians again until the reign of Commodus, when, about the year 183, these troublesome barbarians appear to have broken through the northern wall, slain the general in command of the Roman forces, and pillaged the lowland country beyond. They were, however, driven back by Ulpius Marcellus, who succeeded by prudent management in maintaining peace for a number of years. In the beginning of the reign of Severus, however, the Caledonians again broke out, but were kept in check by Virius Lupus, who appears to have bribed rather than beaten the barbarians into conformity.
The irrepressible Highlanders again broke out about the year 207, and this time the Emperor Severus himself, notwithstanding his bad health and old age, came from Rome to Britain, determined apparently to “stamp out” the rebellion. On hearing of his arrival the tribes sent deputies to him to negotiate for peace, but the emperor, who was of a warlike disposition, and fond of military glory, declined to entertain any proposals.
After making the necessary preparations, Severus began his march to the north in the year 208. He traversed the whole of North Britain, from the wall of Antoninus to the very extremity of the island, with an immense army. The Caledonians avoided coming to a general engagement with him, but kept up an incessant and harassing warfare on all sides. He, however, brought them to sue for peace; but the honours of this campaign were dearly earned, for fifty thousand of the Romans fell a prey to the attacks of the Caledonians, to fatigue, and to the severity of the climate. The Caledonians soon disregarded the treaty which they had entered into with Severus, which conduct so irritated him that he gave orders to renew the war, and to spare neither age nor sex; but his son, Caracalla, to whom the execution of these orders was intrusted, was more intent in plotting against his father and brother than in executing the revengeful mandate of the dying emperor, whose demise took place at York on the 4th February, 211, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, and in the third year of his administration in Britain.
It is in connection with this invasion that we first hear of the Meats or Mæatæ, who are mentioned by Dion Cassius, or rather his epitomiser Xiphiline, and who are supposed by some to have inhabited the country between the two walls, while others think it more likely that they were a part of the Caledonians, and inhabited the district between the Grampians and the wall of Antonine. We shall not, however, enter into this question here, but endeavour, as briefly as possible, to record all that is known of the remaining transactions of the Romans in the north of Scotland, reserving other matters for the next chapter.
It was not consistent with the policy by which Caracalla was actuated, to continue a war with the Caledonians; for the scene of his ambition lay in Rome, to which he made hasty preparations to depart on the death of his father. He therefore entered into a treaty with the Caledonians by which he gave up the territories surrendered by them to his father, and abandoned the forts erected by him in their fastnesses. The whole country north of the wall of Antonine appears in fact to have been given up to the undisputed possession of the Caledonians, and we hear of no more incursions by them till the reign of the emperor Constantius Chlorus, who came to Britain in the year 306, to repel the Caledonians and other Picts.[17] Their incursions were repelled by the Roman legions under Constantius, and they remained quiet till about the year 345, when they again entered the territories of the provincial Britons; but they were compelled, it is said, again to retreat by Constans, son of Constantine the Great.
Although these successive inroads had been always repelled by the superior power and discipline of the Romans, the Caledonians of the fourth century no longer regarded them in the formidable light in which they had been viewed by their ancestors, and their genius for war improving every time they came in hostile contact with their enemies, they meditated the design of expelling the intruders altogether from the soil of North Britain. The wars which the Romans had to sustain against the Persians in the East, and against the Germans on the frontiers of Gaul, favoured the plan of the Caledonians; and having formed a treaty with the Scots, whose name is mentioned for the first time in history in this connection by Ammianus Marcellinus, they, in conjunction with their new allies, about the year 360 invaded the Roman territories and committed many depredations. Julian, who commanded the Roman army on the Rhine, despatched Lupicinus, an able military commander, to defend the province against the Scots and Picts, but he was recalled before he had done much to repel them.
The Picts—who on this occasion are mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus[18] as being divided into two nations, the Dicaledones and Vecturiones—and Scots, being joined by the Attacots, “a warlike race of men,” and the Saxons, numbers of whom appear at this early period to have settled in Britain, made another attack on the Roman provinces in the year 364, on the accession of Valentinian. These appear to have made their way as far south as London, and it required all the valour and skill of Theodosius the Elder, father of the emperor of that name, who was sent to Britain in the year 367, to repel this aggression, and to repair the great ravages committed by the barbarians. The next outbreak occurred about the year 398, when the Picts and Scots again broke loose and ravaged the provinces, being repelled by a legion sent over by the great Stilicho, in answer to the petition of the helpless provincials for assistance.
In the beginning of the fifth century the enervated Romanized Britons again appear to have been subjected to the tender mercies of their wicked northern neighbours; and in reply to their cry for help, Honorius, in 416, sent over to their relief a single legion, which drove back the intruders. The Romans, as is well known, engrossed by overwhelming troubles nearer home, finally abandoned Britain about the year 446, advising the inhabitants, who were suffering from the ravages of the Picts and Scots, to protect themselves by retiring behind and keeping in repair the wall of Severus.