Scotland During The Roman Empire - The Painted Ones

The Painted Ones

The intermittent Roman presence in Scotland coincided with the emergence of the Picts, a confederation of tribes who lived to the north of the Forth and Clyde from Roman times until the 10th century. They are often assumed to have been the descendants of the Caledonii though the evidence for this connection is circumstantial and the name by which the Picts called themselves is unknown. They are often said to have tattooed themselves, but evidence for this is limited. Naturalistic depictions of Pictish nobles, hunters and warriors, male and female, without obvious tattoos, are found on their monumental stones. The Gaels of Dalriada called the Picts Cruithne, and Irish poets portrayed their Pictish counterparts as very much like themselves.

The means by which the Pictish confederation formed is also unknown, although there is speculation that reaction to the growth of the Roman Empire was a factor. The early history of Pictland is unclear. In later periods multiple kings existed, ruling over separate kingdoms, with one king, sometimes two, more or less dominating their lesser neighbours. De Situ Albanie, the Pictish Chronicle, and the Duan Albanach, along with Irish legends, have been used to argue the existence of seven Pictish kingdoms although more may have existed and some evidence suggests that a Pictish kingdom also existed in Orkney.

The Pictish relationship with Rome appears to have been less overtly hostile than their Caledonii predecessors, at least in the beginning. There were no more pitched battles and conflict was generally limited to raiding parties from both sides of the frontier until immediately prior to and after the Roman retreat from Brittania. Their apparent success in holding back Roman forces cannot be explained solely with reference to the remoteness of Caledonia or the difficulties of the terrain. In part it may have been due to the difficulties encountered in subjugating a population that did not conform to the strictures of local governance that Roman power usually depended on to operate through.

The technology of everyday life is not well recorded, but archaeological evidence shows it to have been similar to that in Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England. Recently evidence has been found of watermills in Pictland and kilns were used for drying kernels of wheat or barley, not otherwise easy in the changeable, temperate climate. Although constructed in earlier times, brochs, roundhouses and crannogs remained in use into and beyond the Pictish period.

Elsewhere in Scotland wheelhouses were constructed, probably for ritualistic purposes, in the west and north. Their geographical locations are highly restricted, which suggests that they may have been contained within a political or cultural frontier of some kind and the co-incidence of their arrival and departure being associated with the period of Roman influence in Scotland is a matter of ongoing debate. It is not known whether the culture that constructed them was "Pictish" as such although they would certainly have been known to the Picts.

As Rome's power waned, the Picts were emboldened. War bands raided south of Hadrian's Wall in earnest in 342, 360 and 365 and they participated in the conspiratio barbarica of 367. Rome fought back, mounting campaigns in 369 and 384, but these were short-lived successes. The legions finally deserted Brittania in 410, never to return.