The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. I] OFSCOTLAND 5
tants of Britain, it would appear that, in the time of Agricola,
they were principally distinguished into three races ; viz., the
ign^oia'Ther!
Britanni, the Silures, and the inhabitants of Cale-
clouia. Of these, he remarks the resemblance between
racet ;* Mten- ^he Britanui and the inhabitants of Gaul, both in their
^"^"^
CaiedonTL outward appearance and in their ^
language ;
seem therefore to have been the same people
they
with
Caesar's Britanni, who inhabited the maritime parts of Britain ;
and they appear during the interval between these two writers
to have pushed their conquests in some places even as far as the
western sea, and to have obtained possession of the
of the island.
greater part
That the Silures and Caledonii were not of the
were*^th^°°e" Same race, and could not both have been remnants of
the Albiones or Britons, who inhabited the interior
AMonel ^^'^
during the time of Caesar, appears sufficiently plain
from the very marked distinction which Tacitus draws between
them, and from the different origin which he is consequently
disposed to assign to them. But when we consider the fact, that
the name of Albion or Albania was afterwards exclusively con-
fined to the northern part of Britain, joined to the constant
tradition recorded both b\' the Welsh and native writers, that its
inhabitants were peculiarly entitled to the distinctive appellation
of Albani or Albanich ; it seems obvious that we must view the
inhabitants of Caledonia, which certainly included the whole of
the nations inhabiting to the north of the Firths of Forth and
Clyde,2 as the sole remaining part of the Albiones or ancient
inhabitants of the island.
The only conclusion to which we can come regarding the
The Silures Silures is, that they were either a new people who had
^rt\^/^be
scottii.
arrived during the interval between the periods when
Caesar and Tacitus wrote, or else that they were a
'Tacitus in Vita Agricola, 11. Grampians. In which he distioctly
"Proximi Gaiiis at similes suQt. states that no people lived to the
Sermo haud multuni diversua." north of them, and that they were the
'This appears from the speech
which Tacitus puts into the mouth of
northernmost inhabitants of the
island—"sed nulla jam ultra Galgacus, the Caledonian general,
gens,
nihil nisi fluctus et saxa."-Tacit. Tit.
delivered before the battle of the ^^^-i ^0-