Blaeu Atlas of Scotland, 1654
Name: | Blaeu, Joan, 1596-1673 |
Title: | Adnotata ad Scotorvm Antiqvitatem |
Pagination: | 2-3 |
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Translation of text:
throughout many centuries; indeed the Britons themselves, known quite late to the Romans (earlier certainly to the Greeks), will not avoid this reproach, if Caesar had not pronounced them for the most part indigenous. But the question of our ancestors' immigration to this island is too serious that such a dictator of the antiquarian world could not have not seen that it is not confused in such great darkness; therefore it must be admitted that, labouring under prejudice, he has dissimulated in this.
As the best witness in these controversies we shall call Bede, born and educated in the neighbourhood of the Northumbrian Saxons (himself a Saxon), who lived in these places all his life, which chanced to be quite long, in as much as he died about the year of grace 736, then (if we may believe his epitaph) a nonagenarian. He knew our people and the Picts very well, having had much business with them because of physical closeness and religion; and his trustworthiness in all things is much praised by Camden himself, and he pronounces him an incorrupt and candid witness to truth and antiquity.
At the very beginning of his ecclesiastical history, listing the inhabitants of Britain and their origins, he first registers the Britons, without doubt the most ancient, about whose beginnings nothing was certainly known, either to him or (according to Caesar (2) ) to themselves: to such an extent are they older than all profane history. Next to them he places the Picts, of whose arrival he describes the causes, though ignorant of the time: they, he says, came here by ship, when the greatest part of the island, starting from the south, had long since been occupied by the Britons.
He adds then as third inhabitants the Scots, taken into part of the Picts; under the leadership of Reuda they left Ireland and either by the sword or by friendship claimed for themselves among them the lands which until now they have. Now these lands, in the time of Bede (as will be narrated later) did not go beyond the estuary of the Clyde; they were shut into these narrow bounds by the power of the Saxons, just as, for the same reason, the same in those times had happened to the Picts.
These three distinct peoples having now been located in the island, in a new chapter he goes on to describe the arrival of the Romans, as a thing which had happened in later centuries. This is obvious to those who read clearly, and not tied up in verbal ambiguities, but simply stated according to the praised custom of this Father.
The Scots, as reported by the learned antiquarian Camden, had settled in the island a little before the arrival of the Saxons; admittedly he barely concedes that; for from the words of Bede ch.14, who reports that impudent Irish vagabonds returned home, immediately to come back, and from the passage of Claudian,
When the Scot the whole of Hibernia
Stirred, and Tethys foamed with hostile oar. (3)
he contends that the Scots had not yet settled here, but sailing from Ireland had taken booty. Far otherwise Bede. Now we speak of these peoples as being overseas, (he says, starting his discussion of the Picts and Scots) not because they were located outside Britain, but because they were remote from the part of the Britons, with two gulfs of the sea intervening, etc. For then the border stood at the Clyde and Forth, in the latest time of the Romans in the island, as I shall narrate later, when the discussion comes to boundaries. But to the point: the Saxons were invited and crossed here, as is known, in 449 A.D. The Scots will have been in the island for a few years previously, let us say nine (4). Therefore the Scots first held the island in the year 440. But, as Bede reports, already before the first arrival of Caesar they had taken (5) settlements in it. Now he, according to the same author, had first landed on these shores in 60 B.C., so Camden seems to have removed from Bede's calculation, from Caesar to the year 440, five hundred years: certainly a large interval of time. There are still to be added the years which came between Reuda and Caesar, which our annals determine to have been 144, and to comprise the reigns of nine kings, so that the five first princes listed by them do not come into the account. Let us grant that the annalists were mistaken in the calculation of the years from Reuda (whom they call Reuthar) to Caesar; certainly everyone will admit that rather many years intervened, and we shall not have to enquire anxiously into the number, since when all these years are taken off, without any doubt Camden will lose his case; but I leave this to be judged by the impartial reader.
Now we are delayed from moving on to other matters by an accusation of cannibalism, branded on our ancestors in the earlier edition of his book, with Strabo and Jerome called in evidence. I do not remember having read any such thing in Strabo, nor is there any mention in him of the Scots; he reports little and that uncertain on Britain, saying that he had heard this of the Irish, who are more recent than the Britons and (he reports) more uncivilised.
But we should have to take care of Jerome, if I did not see that in the revision of this man, this offence is remitted for us and the disreputable charge is shifted to the Attacotti: on the authority of the manuscripts, he says, with the agreement of Erasmus, who recognises the corrupt passage; and our antiquarian reports, that he cannot deny that he has read in different manuscripts 'Attigotti', 'Catagotti' and 'Cattitti'. But granted that the truer reading refers to the Attacotti, that people, if not Scots, are grouped with the Scots by Marcellinus; whence, if Jerome is to be believed, our region, or some tribe in it, will be infamous for cannibals. But if this is weighed correctly, it will be safer to trust the Roman historians who lived in these centuries; they indeed, to whom the inhabitants of these regions were the most hostile enemies, although they reported many things about the natures of the inhabitants, committed no such thing to their writings, neither Tacitus, Herodian, Dio nor Marcellinus, none at all except Jerome alone, a man of anger, and whose displeasure no one bore without punishment.
Now the etymology of the name of the Scots is anxiously demanded from us by the erudite antiquarian. The learned Buchanan is reviled for ignorance or negligence; he is accused of failing expectations in this. In such a difficult matter our dictator brings help, profers a torch, from his conjectures, with the votes of some writers of no great reputation, and from the similarity of the words he sends us off to Scythia, although there was never any contact by our ancestors with these regions or peoples. At last after much drawn from a farrago of more of the lowest class, he concludes that he unfortunately fears that as to origin we are always going to be 'Scotaei' (6). Certainly a great charge for one who is to plead in the antiquarian's court. It is fortunate that we are not the only accused. Now let the Romans explain why they called the Hellenes Greeks and the peoples beyond the Rhine Germans: let the Franks, Alemans, Sueves, Catts, Goths, Alans, Vandals, also the Spanish, Gauls and innumerable other peoples give a reason for their name, or this censor will not be satisfied. He wishes to inquire into these matters beyond all antiquity, beyond those times which Varro called unclear and fabulous. Yet he, such an exacting enforcer of such matters, tortures himself wretchedly in the etymology of Britain. But when there is no agreement between him and Llwyd, an old Briton by origin, skilled in the ancient British language, and well versed in these antiquities, I do not know what trust his conjecture will deserve: now he admits that whatever he brings forward in this matter is his conjecture, and does not dare to determine anything certain. We however because we do not conjecture anything about our name will be flogged by the severe man.
NOTESON THE BOUNDARIES
which separated the Scots and Picts from the provincials. (Section Note)
As the learned Camden has reviewed and collected everything relevant to this matter, it would not have been necessary to rehash it, if there were not still a controversy concerning those who determined these boundaries at various times. I think that Julius Agricola was the first to attempt this rather than achieve it; Tacitus (7) says that he strengthened with garrisons the area between the Clyde and the Forth. But nothing of a rampart or wall.
Nor does Spartianus (8) suggest that these defences kept off the enemy under Trajan, who was intent on other worries, scil. the Dacian and Parthian wars: yet, he says, the enemy were constrained, i.e. as I contend, kept within previous limits.
Hadrian's rule follows; he was the first to place the famous fortification across the island. One might suppose from Spartianus' words that this was a wall, after the manner of fortifying a camp, but larger and stronger so as to withstand time, with frequent fortifications added at intervals, where the cohorts who were not on watch could rest, while always ready for emergencies. The crux of the matter is, where on the ground the Emperor positioned this. Camden argues that it was in the same place where later Severus set his boundary: to me it seems rather to have been placed between the two aforesaid gulfs.
No place was more suitable, nowhere else is the island so narrow; already Agricola's work could have invited him to it; nor is it likely that he would have yielded to the enemy such a large region as lies between these two boundaries, which shortly before him was considered part of the empire. What Camden adduces about its length from Spartianus, has little force: why might I not say there is an error in the numbers, and that 30 should be restored for 80, when he wishes to be allowed this in the numbers of Severus' wall? For where Eutropius (9) has 35 miles, he restores 80; where Orosius (10) has 122, he reduces it to 80. So in numbers there is insufficient defence. As for his deductions from the fortifications and garrisons, that those determined at Severus' wall bear the name of Hadrian, such as Aelian Bridge, Aelian Fleet, Aelian Cohort, Sabinian Wing, this is very weak. Everyone knows that legions, cohorts and wings, once raised and arranged for service and distinguished by names, for ever after, wherever they served, retained their names; this may very simply be proved by examples from many periods. Hence the Scribonian Wing, the 7th Galban Legion, the legions of Jovius or Herculius: these names lasted long after the deaths of those who first enlisted them for service and gave them their names. Nor do I trouble with that Scot whom he aduces who wrote the wheel of times, nor our Boece: he mentions them as agreeing with him, but they can produce no defence here except to bring antiquity as witness. But neither