Roman invasion

The written history of Scotland largely begins with the coming of the Roman empire to Britain. Although the pre-Roman inhabitants occasionally used writing for commemorative purpose, these societies favoured a strong oral history. With the loss of the druidic tradition (due to war, famine, and particularly the proscriptions of later Christian missionaries), the people forgot much of this lore. The only surviving pre-Roman account of Scotland originated with the Greek Pytheas of Massalia who circumnavigated the British islands (which he called Pretaniké) in 325 BC, but the record of his visit dates from much later.

The Roman invasion of Britain began in earnest in AD 43. Following a series of military successes in the south, forces led by Gnaeus Julius Agricola entered Scotland in 79. The Romans met with fierce resistance from the local population of Caledonians. In 82 or 83 Agricola sent a fleet of galleys up round the coast of Scotland, as far as the Orkney Islands. In 84 Agricola defeated the Caledonian tribes at the Battle of Mons Graupius. His supporters in Rome proclaimed that he had defeated all the tribes of Britain.

The only historical source for this comes from the writings of Agricola's son-in-law, Tacitus. Archaeology backed up with accurate dating from dendrochronology suggests that the occupation of southern Scotland started before the arrival of Agricola. Whatever the exact dating, for the next 300 years Rome had a significant presence along its northern border, militarily, economically and socially.

The Romans marked their borders with a series of defensive fortifications, including large continuous wall barriers. The earliest of these, the Gask Ridge in Perthshire, dates from the 70s or 80s AD. In the 120s the Roman emperor Hadrian ordered the building of a fortified wall on a line running from the River Tyne to the Solway Firth. Twenty years later the Roman governor Lollius Urbicus built the Antonine Wall (so-named after Antoninus Pius, the Roman emperor who ruled from 138 to 161) further north, across the Forth-Clyde isthmus. At half the length of Hadrian's Wall, this considerably shorter border appeared easier to defend, but nevertheless it represented the northern reach of the Roman Empire for only the next two decades. By approximately 160 an open but manned border once again ran along Hadrian's Wall.

Although the Romans had not found direct rule of Caledonia viable, perhaps because the wild nature of the country and the sparse population made the collection of taxes infeasible, they maintained control through military outposts and the assistance of tribes such as the Votadini who appear to have acted as buffer states.