The archæology and prehistoric annals of Scotland

But besides these relics of Pagan worship, another sepulchral tablet preserves a contemporary memorial of fraternal affection such as pertains exclusively to no creed or time. It is figured on a note of Mr. Irvine's, which appears to have accompanied the drawing of the altar of Minerva, found at Birrens, and may therefore be presumed, like that dedicated to the shade of Pervica, to have formed another of the numerous Roman remains which attest the importance of the station of Blatum Bulgium. It is thus dedicated to the manes of Constantia, the infant daughter of Philus Magnius, who died at the age of one year, eight months, and nine days,—apparently by her brother: assuming that the letters on the pediment should be read, Frater fieri curavit.

These examples, while they serve to illustrate the traces of the Roman invasion which are found in Scotland, furnish additional materials for its history. The circumstances under which some of them have been discovered, and the fact that so many unedited inscriptions should remain to be described, after the very recent researches of the author of the Caledonia Romana, may suffice to shew how many more such relics must have disappeared from time to time, without an opportunity being afforded to the archæologist of noting their pregnant records.

To these may be added the following meagre list of Potters' Stamps,—all that I have been able to recover pertaining to Roman Scotland. This, however, arises from no paucity of materials. Mr. C. K. Sharp informs me that in his early years he remembers to have seen large accumulations of broken Samian ware and other Roman pottery dug up at Birrenswork. The same is also known to have occurred both at Inveresk and Cramond; and during the progress of construction of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in 1841, a mass of debris about twelve feet deep was cut through on the site of the Castlecary Fort, which led to the exposure of a quantity of broken pottery, including some very fine fragments of embossed Samian ware, now in the possession of the Earl of Zetland, the owner of the ground. Had the person entrusted by the noble proprietor to take care of any relics that might be discovered, been sufficiently aware of the interest now attached to the potters' stamps, a large addition to the Scottish list would probably have been the result. As it was, however, he only served effectually to prevent this being accomplished. My friend, Mr. John Buchanan, a zealous Scottish antiquary, who visited Castlecary for the purpose, was prohibited from touching anything within the charmed circle; and, accordingly, these evidences of Roman art are mostly buried below the railway embankment, for rediscovery by other generations, when railway viaducts shall be as obsolete relics as Roman vallums now are. Within the area of the station a neatly cut centurial inscription was discovered, and is now preserved by the Earl of Zetland. It bears the inscription,—COHORTIS SEXTÆ CENTURIA ANTONII ARATI, thus abbreviated:

CHO VI
Ↄ ANTO
ARATI.

It is only very recently, even in England, that the names of the potters stamped on Roman fictile ware, have attracted much attention or been carefully recorded. Through the exertions of Mr. Charles Roach Smith and other zealous archæologists, we are now in possession of ample means for comparing new discoveries with the potters' stamps of London, Colchester, and York; but no collection of Scoto-Roman pottery exists, so far as I am aware, with the exception of the few specimens in the Museum of Scottish Antiquaries. The following apology for a Scottish list must therefore meanwhile suffice. It may perhaps form the nucleus of a more ample one at a subsequent period, by which to enable us to test the question of native or foreign manufacture, and to trace out the sources from whence the Roman colonists of Britain imported their finer fictile wares. The Scottish Museum furnishes a few curious specimens from Castlecary, some of which are given here in fac-simile. The first occurs on fine black ware, and looks like the imperfect attempt of some native or provincial potter to imitate a Roman stamp which he probably could not read. The second and third may be most fitly described as cuneiform. The larger of the two is on thin unglazed red ware. The fourth is on a patera of fine glazed Samian ware, and furnishes a good example of the mode of joining the letters together, with which English antiquaries are familiar, not only on the pottery, but also on the altars and inscribed tablets of the Anglo-Roman period. All these impressions are clear and distinct, so that their peculiarities are designed. Two of the other Castlecary stamps are furnished me by Mr. Buchanan, and the remainder are in my own possession, having been picked up in the neighbourhood of the railway embankment since its completion. For those from Newstead I am chiefly indebted to Dr. J. A. Smith.

• Falkirk—On a Terra Cotta Lamp.
• MARCI
• 
  
• Duntocher.
• BRVSC F[448]
• 
  
• Cramond.
• CARVS F
• ADIECTI
• OF VΛL^O
• OF IVCVN
• 
  
• Birrens.
• SAC · EROR
• 
  
• Newstead, near Eildon.
• W · SEC · V · F · O
• DVRIVS · F
• OXMII
• RVRFI · MA
• OIVSCI[448]
• CIVs[448]
• M · I · M[447]

A handle of a Scoto-Roman amphora in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, the exact locality of the discovery of which is unknown, is stamped with the letters M. P. F. The Roman fictilia in the same collection also include terra cotta lamps from several Scottish localities. One of singular type, in the form of a broad leaf, with the veins strongly marked in relief, was found at Chester Knowes, near Chirnside, Berwickshire, the site as is believed of a temporary camp. Another is from Castlecary, and a third from Birrens. Besides these, various urns, lachrymatories, fragments of mortaria, amphoræ, and Samian, and other wares, all suffice to shew the correspondence of the Roman fictile ware of Scotland and England.

Such are some of the traces of the Roman occupation of Scotland. If we believe the direct statements of the few classic historians who have thought our northern region worthy of notice, the natives were in a state of extreme degradation and barbarism. Yet from the same authors we are able to discover that these barbarians fought in chariots, were armed with swords, lances, bucklers, and poniards, and were capable of offering the most formidable resistance to the veteran legions. Still more, we find that the Caledonians never settled down either in contented peace or in passive despair under the Roman yoke. Experience of the legions did not intimidate them; and at length Septimius Severus, one of the ablest of the Roman emperors, was compelled to employ the arts of the diplomatist rather than of the soldier ere he abandoned them once more to their wild freedom. We may indeed question if this remote region could be worth the labour of conquest; but when once occupied we see in the remains of Roman works abundant reasons why the conquerors should wish to retain it. Our chief inquiry however is, to what extent did this brief and partial Roman occupation affect the native manners and arts? The answer, I think, must be, that its influence was slight, partial, and transitory. Like an unwonted tide, the flood of Roman invasion swept beyond its natural limits, disturbing and unsettling many things long unaffected by change. But the tide ebbed as rapidly as it had flowed, and at most only helped to prepare the soil for a new growth. Neither the manners, the faith, nor the social habits of these foreign occupants of the country could be at all acceptable to the natives, though their superior arts and military skill would not fail to be appreciated, and must have been turned to good account. As, however, we have traced earlier arts and discoveries passing onward from the south to the tribes of the north, and effectually revolutionizing all their primitive habits: so, too, the increasing civilisation of the Anglo-Roman provinces must have extended its fruits beyond the wall of Severus, and effected a more immediate and rapid change than the influence of the same Roman civilisation is seen to have done on Ireland or Denmark, where no legionary invaders ever constructed their intrenchments or established their colonies.

By far the most remarkable native structure which appears to be traceable to the influence and example of Roman arts is the "Deil's Dike," a vast rampart of earth and stone strengthened by a fosse, which passes across many miles of country, through Galloway and Nithsdale. This singular British vallum has excited much less attention than its magnitude and great extent seem to demand. It has been traced through a much larger district of country than the whole length of the Antonine Wall; and though it lacks the historic interest of that structure, and the valuable legionary inscriptions found along its line, it is nevertheless a remarkable evidence of combined action and primitive engineering skill. Mr. Joseph Train remarks of it,—"As it passes from Torregan to Dranandow, it runs through a bog, and is only perceptible by the heather growing long and close on the top of it; whereas, on each side the soil only produces rushes and moss. Near the centre of the bog I caused the peat to be cleared away close to the dike, and thereby found the foundation to be several feet below the surface, which appeared to me a sure indication of its great antiquity." This ancient wall measures eight feet broad at the base, and is mostly built of rough unhewn blocks of moorstone or trap. In districts where stone is more inaccessible it is constructed of stones mixed with earth and clay, and at some few points it is entirely of earth. It has been strengthened at intervals with fortified stations, like the Roman walls from which its model is supposed to be derived. One of these, on the height above Glendochart, is a circular fort 190 yards in diameter. Another fort is situated on a well-chosen, commanding height, called the Hill of Ochiltree, on the east side of Loch Maberrie. The fosse, which is still traceable along a great part of the wall, is on its north side, from whence we are justified in inferring that the vallum was reared by the natives of the southern districts. It is, of course, impossible to assign the age or the builders of this ancient structure with absolute certainty. History is utterly silent on the subject; and it is a fact well worthy of note, in reference to previous remarks on the possibility of many noteworthy deeds having passed unchronicled to oblivion, that everything connected with this defensive erection is involved in the darkest obscurity. The very name which ascribes its origin to the Master Fiend shews how completely tradition has lost every clue to its builders. Yet the civilisation which led to such combined exertion as was needed both for the erection and defence of such an extent of wall must have been considerable. History has doubtless burdened itself with the charge of many meaner themes. The correspondence of the general design to the two Roman walls seems very clearly to point to its erection by the southern Britons after the departure of the Romans, when we know that they frequently suffered from inroads of the northern tribes. The circular forts along the line of the Deil's Dike also furnish a curious link connecting it at once with the older Roman and native military works, while they present a striking contrast to the camps and wall stations of the Roman legionaries.

Cæsar refers to the Britons in his time as using imported bronze. But he had no personal knowledge of the south-western districts of England, where copper and tin had been wrought for ages prior to the Roman invasion. Whether iron was manufactured in Britain before the Roman Invasion it is now perhaps impossible to ascertain, but the familiarity of the Romans with the mineral wealth of England at an early period gives some probability to the supposition that they found native workings of iron and lead as well as of tin and copper. Tacitus refers in general terms to the metallic wealth of Britain; Pliny alludes to the smelting of iron; and Solinus speaks of its use in the manufacture of weapons and agricultural implements. But whether the Romans originated, or only followed up the native workings, in mining for lead and iron, it is unquestionable that they gave a new impetus to the application of the metals to economic purposes. Roman pottery and glass, coins of Nero, Vespasian, and Diocletian, and other undoubted evidences of a Roman origin, have been discovered among the accumulated beds of scoriæ and other refuse of ancient forges in Sussex. Similar traces of iron-foundries accompanied with Roman coins have been observed near the wall of Hadrian, in Yorkshire and other counties. Two altars found at different times, the last at Benwell, in Northumberland, dedicated to Jupiter Dolichenus, the protector of iron-works, add still further evidence of the extent to which this useful metal was wrought during the Anglo-Roman period.[449]

The forest of Dean also is familiar to English archæologists for its extensive mines and shafts, its beds of scoriæ, and other remains of ancient forges, among which have been found unquestionable traces of the Roman presence. Similar works are not to be looked for in Scotland, where no indisputable traces have yet been detected even of the working of the superficial clay. Many remains of ancient forges are, however, known in various districts both to the north and south of the Antonine Wall, though generally unaccompanied by relics which can enable us to assign them unhesitatingly to any precise period. The traces of an extensive iron forge are still obvious on the "Fir Isle," a peninsular promontory on the Carlinwark Loch, Kirkcudbrightshire, a locality peculiarly rich in its stores of archæological relics, including even the rude primitive canoes and other records of the primeval era. During the construction of the great military road through the same district, a large mound was levelled at a place called "Buchan's Croft, near the three thorns of the Carlinwark," which proved to be a mass of scoriæ and cinders, such as are generally left from a forge. This the ancient traditions of Galloway assign to a comparatively recent date, marking it as the spot where the famed Scottish cannon Mons Meg was manufactured in the fifteenth century.[450] Similar remains in the Roman districts of Lanarkshire are unhesitatingly attributed, in the Old Statistical Account of the parish of Dalziel, to operations of the Roman colonists:—"The great Roman highway, commonly called Watling Street, went along the summit of this parish from east to west, but its course is now much defaced by modern improvements. In one place, however, near the centre of that parish, it has been preserved entire, so as to point out the line to after times; the cross stone, the emblem of the baron's jurisdiction, being placed upon it, and that fenced by a large clump of trees planted around. At this place lies a large heap of the cinders of the Roman forges still untouched."[451]

In many of the uncultivated districts of Scotland iron ore occurs in the forms already noted as the most easily adapted for conversion into metal; and it is by no means improbable that such sources may have supplied it to the Celtic metallurgists, long before they had learned the difficult processes requisite for converting the native iron-stone into metal. Whencesoever the art was derived, numerous Highland traditions and even the names of particular localities point to the excellency of the ancient Celtic smiths. In Blair-Atholl, for example, a district abounding with cairns and other primitive memorials, is Dail-na-Cardoch—the dale of the smith's shop, or rather of the iron work; and Dail-na-mein—the dale of the mineral. "Near these," says the old Statist of the parish of Blair-Atholl, "and along the side of the hill, down to Blair, are still to be seen the holes wherein they smelted the iron ore." Similar pits scattered over the northern moors are described as the kilns in which peats were charred for smelting. "There is still to be seen in Glenturret," says Logan in his Scottish Gael, "a shieling called Renna Cardick—the smith's dwelling—with the ruins of houses, heaps of ashes, and other indications of an iron manufactory. Old poems mention it as a work where the metal, of which swords and other arms were made some miles lower down the valley, was prepared. In Sutherland also are distinct marks of the smelting and working of iron with fires of wood."[452] In Islay is still shewn the spot where stood the forge of its once celebrated smiths, and the rocks from whence the iron was dug which they fabricated into the renowned "Lann-Ila," or Islay blades.[453] In the Sean Dana le Oisian also occurs the elaborated poetic description of the ancient bow and quiver, concluding 'S ceann o'n cheard Mac Pheidearain; i.e., and the head of the arrow from the smith MacPhedran. Among the curious relics preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries is the rude pair of iron forge-tongs figured above. They measure thirty and a half inches in length in their present imperfect state, and are described in the minutes of the Society as having been discovered buried under the steep bank of a river in Glenorchy, thirty feet below the surface. It is farther added, in the neighbourhood of the spot great quantities of charcoal were found, and other indications that anciently there had been a smelting work there, though no trace of it now exists in the history or traditions of the country.