A history of the Highlands and of the Highland clans

CHAPTER I.
HISTORY OF THE HIGHLANDS; ROMAN PERIOD.
Op the Aborigiual Tribes of North Britain at the period of Agricola's invasion— Tlieir
names and topographical positions— State of civilization— Religion—Modes of sepulture
— BaiTows, Cairns, Cistvaens and Urns—War weapons— Canoes and CuiTachs
Invasion and Campaigns of Agricola— Battle of the Grampians— Recal and death of
Agricola— Succeeded by Lollius Urbicus—Wall of Antoninus—Roman Iter through
the North— Roman highways, and stations or forts—Campaign of Severus—The Picts,
Scots, and Attacots—Roman abdication of North Britain,
When Agricola invaded North Britain in the year eighty-one of the
Christian era, it appears to have been possessed by twenty-one tribes of
aboriginal Britons, having little or no political connexion with one
another, although evidently the same people in origin, speaking the
same language, and following the same customs. The topographical
position of these Caledonian tribes or clans at the epoch in question,
may be thus stated :
First, The Ottadini or Otadeni, occupied the south-east boundary of
North Britain, extending along the whole line of coast from the southern
Tyne to the Frith of Forth, and including the half of Northumberland,
the eastern part of Roxburghshii-e, the whole of Berwickshire and of
East Lothian. They had two towns, both south of the Tweed, called
Curia,* supposed to have been situated in Roxburghshire, and Bremenium,
understood to be Rochester on Reedwater in Northumberland. The
latter was the chief town. Antiquaries conclude that this tribe derives
its name from the river Tyne, which formed their boundary on the
south, because the name in British denotes the people living beyond
or out from the Tyne.
Second, The Gadeni inhabited the interior country on the west of
the Ottadini including the western part of Northumberland ; a small
part of Cumberland, lying to the north of Irthing river ; the western
part of Roxburghshire, the whole of Selkirk, Tweeddale ; a consider^
able part of Mid-Lothian, and nearly all "West Lothian. Their pos-
sessions thus extended from the Tyne on the south, to the Frith of
Forth on the north ; and Curia on the Gore water was their capital,
Conjecture derives the name of this tribe from the groves with which
their country abounded.
* The names of the towns, and of the different tribes are taken from the map? „{
Ptolemy, and Richard of Cirencester, a monk of the fourteenth century,
I. A
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