e tribes in 55-54 B.C. He made no permanent
impression. But successive expeditions were sent out, and the tide of
conquest flowed further and further east and west and north till it
reached the Solway. The details of the conflict do not concern us here.
But it would be unpardonable to omit mentioning Boadicea, Queen of the
Iceni, in the East, and of Caractacus, leader of the Silures, in the
West, both of whom offered strenuous opposition to the Roman advance.
The powerful tribe of the Brigantes, who possessed the country between
the Humber and the Solway, made a stout defence in the North, but by the
year 70 A.D. the Roman province was coterminous with the present southern
boundary of Scotland. It was now that the Romans heard the name of a new
tribe--the Caledonian Britons, who, according to report, lived upon fish
and milk, clearly indicating a less advanced stage of civilisation than
that of the tribes they had encountered hitherto. The unexplored
territory in which they dwelt was vaguely called Thule. Tacitus, the
historian, and son-in-law of Julius Agricola--the discoverer of
Strathearn--imagined it to be an island formed by the meeting of the
Firths of Forth and Clyde. But the time was now come when more accurate
information was to be obtained concerning Caledonia and its inhabitants.
Some external characteristics had been noted. The Caledonians were
described as Caerulei, from the green colour with which they stained
their bodies. It was also said that they fought with chariots like the
Britons of the interior, whom Caesar heard of 125 years before.

Julius Agricola was the man who first brought the Caledonians within the
ken of distinct history. He came to Britain in 78 A.D. His first
campaign was on the Welsh border, his second in the territory of some
outlying Brigantian tribes along the northern shores of the Solway.
These were the Selgovae, who occupied what is now the county of Dumfries,
and the Novantes further to the west in the modern counties of
Kirkcudbright and Wigton. To the north of these lay the great nation of
the Damnonii--of the same stock as those who occupied Devonshire in the
south of England. They held extensive territories in the centre of
Scotland, including the counties of Ayr, Lanark, Renfrew, south of the
Firths of Forth and Clyde, and, north of these estuaries, the counties of
Dumbarton and Stirling and the districts of Menteith, Stratherne, and
Forthreve, or the western ha