Caledonians
The Caledonians were considered to be a group of Britons,[1] but later, after the Roman conquest of the southern half of Britain, the northern inhabitants were distinguished as Picts, thought to be a related people who would have also spoken a Brittonic language.
Peter Salway assumes that the Caledonians would have been Pictish tribes speaking a language closely related to Common Brittonic, or a branch of it[2] augmented by fugitive Brythonic resistance fighters fleeing from Roman-occupied Britannia.
[9] In AD 180 the Caledonians took part in an invasion of Britannia, breached Hadrian's Wall and were not brought under control for several years, eventually signing peace treaties with the governor Ulpius Marcellus.
[12] In 197 AD Dio Cassius records that the Caledonians aided in a further attack on the Roman frontier being led by the Maeatae and the Brigantes and probably inspired by the removal of garrisons on Hadrian's Wall by Clodius Albinus.
The governor who arrived to oversee the regaining of control over Britannia after Albinus' defeat, Virius Lupus, was obliged to buy peace from the Maeatae rather than fight them.
Cassius Dio records that the Caledonians inflicted 50,000 Roman casualties due to attrition and unconventional tactics such as guerrilla warfare.
Dr. Colin Martin has suggested that the Severan campaigns did not seek a battle but instead sought to destroy the fertile agricultural land of eastern Scotland and thereby bring about genocide of the Caledonians through starvation.
Caracalla attempted to take over command but when his troops refused to recognise him as emperor, he made peace with the Caledonians and retreated south of Hadrian's Wall to press his claim for the imperial title.
[21] James E. Fraser argues that Tacitus and other Romans were aware of methods of Caledonians dyeing their hair in order to achieve the stereotypical red colour, and that it was likely misinterpreted as an ethnic identifier.
"[26] The hillforts that stretched from the North York Moors to the Scottish Highlands are evidence of a distinctive character emerging in northern Great Britain from the Middle Iron Age onwards.
They were much smaller than the hillforts further south, often less than 10,000 square metres in area (one hectare, about 2.47 acres), and there is no evidence that they were extensively occupied or defended by the Caledonians, who appear to generally have had a dispersed settlement pattern.
Barry Cunliffe considers that the importance of demonstrating an impressive residence became less significant by the second century because of falling competition for resources due to advances in food production or a population decline.
Alternatively, finds of Roman material may mean that social display became more of a matter of personal adornment with imported exotica rather than building an impressive dwelling.
