second wing of Spanish horse, quartered here, by command of Marius Valerianus, the Imperial Legate, and under the superintendence of Septimius Nilus, the præfect. When this lapidary-record is compared with the Notitia, we find that Spanish cavalry garrisoned Cilurnum two hundred years. The Romans were not in the custom of moving their troops, capriciously, from place to place, as is the practice with modern regiments. The legions destined for service in Britian remained there constantly. Hence the long sojourn of Spanish troops at Cilurnum. The sagacity of the Romans in posting their auxiliaries, or to them foreign soldiers, along Hadrian's Wall, is worthy of notice. Composed of men from many conquered nations, these were broken into parties, so that no large number of any particular nation was concentrated at any one point, but kept separate by soldiers of a totally different people—thus, Gauls were separated from Gauls by Dutchmen, Spaniards by Batavians, and so on, thereby creating a check against general conspiracy or treachery among these mural troops.

No one who has had the privilege of visiting Cilurnum can leave its precincts without retaining a feeling of profound interest in the archæological memorials there collected, and so appropriately under the care of such a learned and zealous antiquary as the courteous and hospitable proprietor of Chesters.

The ruins of five additional fortresses exist between Cilurnum and the eastern termination of the Wall. These are-Halton-Chesters (Hunnum), Rutchester (Vindoballa), Benwell (Condercum), Newcastle (Pons Aelii), and Walls-end (Segedunum). But as that district is less interesting in an archæological point of view, the mural remains being much defaced by cultivation and buildings, I shall not pursue the subject further. I shall only remark that the now great town of Newcastle owes its name to the erection, by the eldest son of William the Conqueror, of the fine Norman Keep, which was then designated the New Castle, in contradistinction to the Old Castle of the Romans, and exists in fine condition. Prior to the Conquest the place was popularly called Monk-Chesters.

Having said this much regarding Hadrian's Wall, it must be a source of gratification to archæologists in particular to know that, much as this splended memorial of remote antiquity has been dilapidated by the merciless hands of man, the spoiler has now been to a great extent stayed. The Duke of Northumberland and others holding extensive possessions in the districts it traverses, have taken

large portions of it under their care. Its history has been explained to the farmers and others along the line, and these now take an interest in its preservation and are proud of it. How desirable it would be, were a similar course adopted for the protection of what still lingers of our own Roman barrier between the Clyde and the Forth, constructed during the reign of Antoninus Pius, the worthy successor of Hadrian, but which has long been so sadly neglected. It, too, has a history full of interest, and ought to excite in the mind of every Scotsman a wish for its preservation, as, among other claims, a venerable memorial of the time when the torch of civilization was first carried into our native land. To shew the interest which the Duke of Northumberland takes in the remains of the Roman Occupation, His Grace and the Duchess, last year, rode along an extensive range of Hadrian's Wall, accompanied by Mr. Clayton and the Rev. Dr. Bruce, visiting Cilurnum, Procolitia, Borcovicus, Vindolana, several of the mile-castles, and other points of interest. With his well-known munificence, also, the Duke some time ago directed a complete survey to be made of the Wall, from sea to sea, and of that section of the ancient Roman Iter, popularly called Watling Street, running through the counties of Durham and Northumberland, from the Tees to the Scotch Border. This extensive survey occupied several years, and has recently been completed by Mr. Henry Maclauchlan, Member of the Archæological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, accompanied by a Descriptive Memoir. The survey has been engraved in a magnificent folio, and the Memoir printed in a separate handsome volume at the Duke's expense, for private distribution. I have had the honour to receive from His Grace, presentation copies of both, inscribed from Alnwick Castle in February last, and I now lay upon the table of the Archæological Society of Glasgow this splendid work for the inspection of the Members.

Before concluding, it seems not altogether out of place to say a few words regarding our wild ancestors, against whose inroads the Romans constructed such formidable fortifications. Our curiosity is excited to know what the Romans said about them. This can be gleaned from some of their historians; but their accounts must be taken with considerable reserve. Thus, Herodianus, who wrote in the reign of the Emperor Gordian, probably about the year 243, relates:-"Many parts of the country are fenny, by the frequent inundations of the sea. The natives swim through these fens, or run through them up to the waist in mud, for the greater part of

their bodies being naked they regard not the dirt! They wear iron about their bellies and necks, esteeming this as fine and rich an ornament as others do gold. They make on their bodies the figures of divers animals, and use no clothing, that these may be exposed to view. They are a very bloody and warlike people, using a little shield or target, and a spear. Their sword hangs on their naked bodies. They know not the use of a breastplate and helmet, and imagine these would be an impediment to them in passing the fens. The air is always thick with the vapours that ascend from these marshes."

Another writer, Xiphilinus, in his epitome of the now lost books of an author contemporary with the Emperors Heliogabalus and Alexander Severus-embracing the period when the slab to the former was inscribed at Cilurnum by the Spanish cavalry, already alluded to--states, "The two most considerable bodies of the people in the northern part of the island, and to which almost all the rest relate, are the Caledonians and the Mæatæ. The latter dwell near the Great Wall that separates the island into two parts; the others live beyond them. Both inhabit upon barren uncultivated mountains, or in desert marshy plains, where they have neither walls nor towns, nor manured lands, but feed on the milk of their flocks, what they get by hunting, and some wild fruits. They never eat fish though they have great plenty of them. They have no houses but tents, where they live naked. Their government is popular, and the exercise to which they are most addicted is robbing. They fight upon chariots; their horses are low but swift. They have great agility of body and tread very surely. The arms they make use of are a buckler, a poniard, a short lance, at the lower end of which is a piece of brass in the form of an apple; with this their custom is to make a noise to frighten their enemies. They are accustomed to fatigue, to bear hunger, cold, and all manner of hardships. They run into the morasses up to the neck, and live there several days without eating. When they are in the woods they live upon roots and leaves. They make a certain food that so admirably supports the spirits, that when they have taken the quantity of a bean they feel no more hunger or thirst. We are masters of little more than half the island."

Nay, what is not a little curious, the Romans have left behind them a representation of the natives of the district around what is now Glasgow, but then a wilderness through which roamed the wolf,

the black bear, and other wild beasts. In the "Roman-Room" of the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow College, is preserved a slab discovered in the Roman fort of Castlehill, near East Kilpatrick, on the Antonine Wall, whereon are sculptured three naked captives sitting on the ground, their arms tied behind their backs, and guarded by a cavalry soldier. The Roman eagle and a capricorn occupy one side of the slab, and a priest in full dress, with a sacrificing vessel in his hard, appears on the other. The expression of the captives is grim and determined, corresponding with the description of the wild people by the historians before cited. The slab is dedicated to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, to commemorate the construction, by the Second Legion, Augusta, of four miles and six hundred and sixtysix paces of the Roman barrier between Clyde and the Forth. The date of this curious piece of sculpture is about the year 140 of the Christian era.

Such are the Roman descriptions and delineation of our rude ancestors, more than 1600 years ago. Animated by an unquenchable love of liberty, they courageously met the Imperial troops in many a bloody conflict, and Rome failed in the effort to wrest from Caledonia her cherished independence.

P

TRANSACTIONS OF THE GLASGOW ARCHÆOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

NO. VIII.

ON THE EARLY POPULATION OF SCOTLAND:

BY

JOHN SCOULER, Esq., M. D.

[Read at a Meeting of the Glasgow Archæological Society, on 9th January, 1860.]

THE question of the race to which the early population of the North of Scotland belonged is the most difficult to answer of any which relates to the ethnology of the British Island. In answering it, every possible solution has been given, and if opinion is still unsettled it depends perhaps as much on the temper of the writers as on the obscurity of the subject. The classical authors afford us but small assistance, and until very recently the state of Celtic philology was so unsatisfactory that the resources it was capable of affording could not be employed with safety. If the hypotheses advanced have been numerous they do not claim an equal amount of probability, and two of them may be at once set aside, and the rival followers of Pinkerton and the M'Phersons may be safely neglected. That the early population of the North of Scotland was Gothic has as little probability as the antagonistic doctrine that Ireland was peopled by Celts from Scotland. The dream of Pinkerton that the Belgic colonies in England, the Scots or Gaedbil of Ireland, and the Picts of Scotland, were of Gothic descent is merely a specimen of ethnological monomania.* That a Gothic language was spoken in Scotland before the time of the Saxon invasion, as put forth by Pinkerton and supported by the truly respectable authority of Dr. Jamieson, is a doctrine which it is difficult to accept. All the topographical names of the country north of the Firths, except such as are of modern Norse or Saxon origin, were either Gaedhelic or British, and we find no Gothic name earlier than the sixth century. Malcolm Canmore, who married a Saxon princess, spoke the Gaedhelic in his intercourse with his subjects, and acted as interpreter to his Saxon queen, a circumstance which would be inexplicable if the Eastern Lowlands, from the Forth

Such fancies are not yet extinct. Dr. Latham tells us that the Picts came from Pomerania, and that the Celts of Asia, the Galatæ, were Poles from Gallicia.