The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

24 THE HIGHLANDERS [part i
mous with Picti,»and a mere error of the transcriber, and they
have accordingl)- been so translated by O'Connor in his edition
of these annals ; but when we remark the uniformity with
which these appellations occur in the two annalists, and with
which they are distinguished from the rest of the Picts, and the
confusion which such an idea must necessarily introduce both
in the chronology and in the succession of the Pictish monarchs,
it is impossible to suppose that they are the mere casual
blunders of a transcriber.
The similarity of name, and other causes connected with
their kings, which we shall afterwards mention, plainly point
out the Piccardach of Tighernac to be the same with the Vecturiones
of the Romans, and the southern Picts of Bede, and
consequently the name of Cruithne, although no doubt occasionally
applied to all the Picts, would in its more restricted
Sense belong to the Dicaledones or northern Picts.
Besides this great division of the Pictish nation
oUhe^Picte^^ '"^° ^^^ northern and southern Picts, they were also
divided into a number of smaller tribes, whose union
together in a sort of permanent confederacy formed the two
larger nations. The expressions of Tacitus shew, that when
the Romans first appeared in Caledonia, it was inhabited by a
number of " Civitates "
apparently independent of each other,
and the immediate result of the Roman invasion was the union
of these tribes for the first time into a strong confederacy, and
the election of Galgacus as a general to lead them to battle.
In the second centur)', we again find them divided into a
number of small tribes, whose names and situations are given
us by Ptolemy. Shortly after this time, the great division into
Vecturiones and Dicaledones took place, but that division did
not, it would seem, make any change in the constitution of the
Pictish nation as a confederacy of small tribes, or even produce
a more close connexion between them.
From this period, the existence of the smaller tribes which
composed the Pictish nations, can be sufficiently traced in Bede
and the Irish annalists. Thus Bede appears to allude to these
tribes under the appellation of " Provincial," when, on one
occasion, he mentions the " Universas Provincias Pictorum,"
and in another, the " ProviJiciis Septentrionalium Pictorum."