The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• The Works of Edward Gibbon
• The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
• Chapter Xxii
• Chapter Xxiii
• Chapter Xxiv
• Chapter Xxv
• Chapter Xxvi
• Appendix Additional Notes By the Editor
• 1.: Legend of the Finding of the True Cross — ( P. 76 )
• 2.: St. George — ( P. 98 )
• 3.: Churches of Constantine At Jerusalem — ( P. 75 )
• 4.: The Tigris and Euphrates — ( P. 127 )
• 5.: Authorities — ( C. Xxv . Sqq. )
• 6.: Picts and Scots — ( P. 226, 227 )
• 7.: The Death of Count Theodosius — ( P. 236 )
• 8.: Mellobaudes — ( P. 236, 257 )
• 9.: List of Kings of Persia, From Sapor II. To Kobad — ( P. 242 )
• 10.: The Origin of the Huns — ( C. Xxvi .)
• 11.: The Sarmatian War of 378 — ( P. 324 , N. 112 )
• 12.: Chronology of the Pacification of the Goths, 379, 380 — ( P. 329 Sqq. )

6.

PICTS AND SCOTS — (P. 226, 227)

“Cæsar tells us that the inhabitants of Britain in his day painted themselves with a dye extracted from wood; by the time, however, of British independence under Carausius and Allectus, in the latter part of the third century, the fashion had so far fallen off in Roman Britain that the word Picti, Picts, or painted men, had got to mean the peoples beyond the Northern Wall, and the people on the Solway were probably included under the same name, though they also went by the separate denomination of Atecotti. Now all these Picts were natives of Britain, and the word Picti is found applied to them for the first time in a panegyric by Eumenius, in the year 296; but in the year 360 another painted people appeared on the scene. They came from Ireland, and to distinguish these two sets of painted foes from one another Latin historians left the painted natives to be called Picti, as had been done before, and for the painted invaders from Ireland they retained, untranslated, a Celtic word of the same (or nearly the same) meaning, namely Scotti. Neither the Picts nor the Scotti probably owned these names, the former of which is to be traced to Roman authors, while the latter was probably given the invaders from Ireland by the Brythons, whose country they crossed the sea to ravage. The Scots, however, did recognise a national name, which described them as painted or tattooed men. . . . This word was Cruithnig, which is found applied equally to the painted people of both Islands.” “The portion of Ireland best known to history as Pictish was a pretty well-defined district consisting of the present county of Antrim and most of that of Down.” (Professor Rhŷs, Early Britain, p. 235 sqq.) But Professor Rhŷs now takes another view of Picti, which he regards not as Latin, but as native and connected with the Gallic Pictones. See Scottish Review, July, 1891.

Ammianus (278) divided the inhabitants of the North of Britain (the Picts) into two nations, the Dicalidonæ and Verturiones. “Under the former name, which seems to mean the people of the two Caledonias, we appear to have to do with the Caledonias proper . . . while in later times the word Verturiones yielded in Goidelic the well-known name of the Brythons of the kingdom of Fortrenn: they were possibly the people previously called Boresti, but that is by no means certain.” (Rhŷs, ib. p. 93.)

The Atecotti seem to have occupied part of the land between the walls of Hadrian and Antoninus, where the Maeatae dwelled (see Mr. Haverfield’s map of Roman Britain, in Poole’s Historical Atlas of Modern Europe). Professor Rhŷs proposes to identify them with the earlier Genunians (Γενουνία μοɩ̂ρα of Pausanias, 8, 43) and the later Picts of Galloway (ib. p. 89, 90).