Bygone Scotland: Historical and Social. David Maxwell
and form insular settlements. It is indeed possible that, before that subsidence of the land of Western Europe which separated our islands from the mainland and from each other, was effected by the slow but ever-acting forces of geology, men were living on the banks of ancient rivers which are now represented by the Clyde, the Thames, and the Shannon.
The authentic history of Britain dates from the Roman invasion; before this event all is myth and legend. Half a century before the commencement of our era, Julius Cæsar, whilst consolidating in strong and durable Roman fashion his conquest of Gaul, was informed by certain merchants of the country that on the other side of the narrow sea which bounded them on the north, there was a fertile land called Britain, or the land of tin. With his legions, in the trireme galleys of the period, Cæsar crossed the narrow sea, and, so far as he went, he conquered the land.
The inhabitants were in a rude condition of life; semi-barbarous perhaps, but certainly the peoples of Fingal and Ossian in the north, and of Caractacus and Boadicea in the south, had advanced far beyond simple savagery. Climatic and geographical influences had moulded into a robust, if a fierce and stubborn type, the common materials of humanity. The ancient Britons had, in their ideas of government, advanced beyond mere clan chieftainship. Their annals, in stone cairns and the songs of bards, commemorated bygone battles and deeds of warrior renown. They had a religion with its trained priesthood—it was not a religion of sweetness and light, but of ferocity and gloom, of human sacrifices, and mystical rites. Its temples and altars were clusters of huge stones, arranged in forest glades on some astronomical principles. The Druidic faith was one of the many offshoots of ignorant barbarism, in which the celestial orbs and the forces in terrestrial nature—lightning and tempest—life and fire—were deified. Its priesthood was a close order, holding in their mystical gripe the minds and lives of the people. It has been said that the ancient Britons were such firm believers in a future state, that they would even lend each other money, to be repaid in the spiritual world. Their language was a dialect of the Gaelic—the language spoken in more ancient times over the greater portion of Western Europe.
The Roman invasion under Julius was little more than a raid. He marched his legions as far inland as the Thames, and again retired to the coast; he left Britain without forming a Roman settlement, and for nearly a hundred years the island remained free, and did a considerable maritime trade with Gaul and Scandinavia. In A.D. 43, the fourth Roman emperor, Claudius, with a large army, invaded Britain. The native tribes, although generally inimical to the Romans, had no concerted action amongst themselves, were often, indeed, at war with each other; and thus the disciplined soldiers of Rome had a comparatively easy task, although they had many fierce encounters with native bravery and hardihood. One British chief, Caractacus, held out the longest. He was the King of the Silurians, the dwellers in South Wales and its neighbourhood. For several years he withstood the masters of the world, but was ultimately defeated in battle, and he and his family were sent prisoners to Rome.
On the eastern coast, in what is now Suffolk and Norfolk, was a tribe called the Icenians. This tribe, under Boadicea, the widow of one of its kings, made, in the absence of the Roman governor, Suetonius, raids upon London, Colchester, and other Roman towns. When Suetonius returned, he defeated Boadicea in a battle near London. She killed herself rather than submit. Agricola succeeded Suetonius as governor, and he pushed the Roman Conquest northwards to a line between the Firths of Forth and Clyde. Beyond this line the Romans never made permanent conquests. Along this line Agricola built a chain of forts as a defence of the Roman province against incursions from the northern tribes, and as a base of operations in attempting farther conquests. In a campaign in the year 84, he was opposed by a native force under a chief called Galgacus. A battle was fought amongst the Grampian Hills, near Blairgowrie, with a hardly-won victory to Agricola. It was such a victory as decided him to make the Tay the northern boundary of Roman occupation. But Roman fleets sailed round the northern shores—planting the Imperial Standard on Orkney—and returned, having proved that Britain was an island.
The northern portion of the island, beyond the line of forts, was then called Caledonia; border fighting was the rule, and the “barbarians from the hills” made frequent raids into the Romanized lowlands. Indeed, not only had the Romans to build a wall connecting the forts of Agricola, but also, as a second line of defence, one between the Tyne and the Solway Firth. The two walls prove the determination of the Romans to maintain their British conquests, and also at what a high rate they estimated the native resistance.
In 208, Severus had to re-conquer the country between the walls, restoring that of Agricola, and he carried the Roman eagles to the farthest points north which they ever reached. The remains of Roman roads through Strathearn to Perth, and thence through Forfar, the Mearns, and Aberdeen to the Moray Firth, belong to this period; and they represent attempts to subdue the whole island. Dion, the Roman historian, ascribes the failure of this attempt to the death of Severus at York, in 211. He describes the Caledonians as painting on their skins the forms of animals; of being lightly armed; making rapid dashes in battle; of having no king, only their tribal chieftains. In 305, Constantius defeated the tribes between the walls; they are called in the Roman records, “Caledonians and other Picts;” the latter name being then used for the first time, and as being the more generic appellation. In 360, the Scots are named for the first time. They and the Picts made a descent upon the Roman province, and this is spoken of in terms which imply that they had previously passed the southern wall.
For about 366 years the Romans held sway in Britain; if we think of it, for as long a period as elapsed between Henry the Eighth’s publishing his treatise in defence of the seven Romish sacraments, and the jubilee of Queen Victoria. The conquest of an inferior by a superior race is generally fraught with progressive issues to the conquered people. In the roads and architecture, the laws and the civic institutions of the country, the Romans left lasting memorials of their British rule. Towns rose and flourished; marshes were drained; the land was cultivated; low-lying coast lands were, by embankments, protected from the sea; trade advanced; Christianity and Roman literature were introduced.
As a constituent portion of the empire, Britain occupies a place in Roman history. A Roman commander in Britain, Albinus, had himself nominated emperor. He carried an army into Gaul, but was there beaten and slain in a battle with the rival emperor, Severus. Severus himself died at York, then called Eboracum; and, in 273, Constantine, since styled The Great, was born in that city, his mother, Helena, being British. Constantius, the father of Constantine, had a long struggle for the possession of Britain with Carausius, a Belgian-born Roman general, who, in 286, rebelled against the authority of the empire. The usurper formed a navy, with which he for eight years prevented Roman troops from landing on our shores, but he lost his life through treachery, and once more the imperial eagles floated over Britain. For a time Britain might be said to be the head-quarters of the empire. Residing principally at York, Constantius gave his commands to Gaul and Spain, to Italy itself, to Syria and Greece. It was in Britain that on the death of his father, in 306, Constantine was proclaimed emperor. He was the first Christian emperor, and all the emperors who succeeded him professed Christianity, except Julian, who, returning to the old gods, was called The Apostate; but Julian was really a wiser ruler and a better man than many of those who called themselves Christian. The new religion became the official faith of the empire. Not much is known with certainty of the early British church, but there are said to have been archbishops in the three chief cities, London, York, and Caerleon.
The grand old Latin language, containing in its literature the garnered up thoughts and attainments of centuries, spread its refining influences wherever the Roman camp was pitched. Latin was the official language in Roman Britain, and it would be known and probably spoken by the well-to-do Britons in the towns. But it never amalgamated with the old Celtic-Welsh of the common people. Celtic, although in many respects a well-constructed language, is not a pliant one—is not adapted for readily intermingling with other tongues. It has in its various dialects, which have through the succeeding centuries maintained their existence in Wales, in Ireland, and in the Highlands of Scotland, kept itself altogether apart from the English language; and it has given comparatively few of its words to the modern tongue.
In the third century the Roman empire was in its decline, and hastening to its fall. Constantine transferred the seat of government to Byzantium, and that city was thenceforth named