Fortriu
[6] Mallory & Adams saw the name as representing tu(:)rjones, derived from Indo European tur meaning "mighty", with the intensive prefix *wer.
[1] Fortriu is first recorded by the Roman author Ammianus Marcellinus, who writing in c. 392 used the Latin name Verturiones to describe one of the two gentes or "peoples" of the Picts who took part in the Barbarian Conspiracy of 367-368.
[1] The Verturiones may have emerged as part of a pattern seen in other Roman frontier zones such as Germany, where areas beyond the border saw population groups amalgamating into fewer but larger political units.
[19] Bridei is depicted by Adomnan as overlord of a regulus or "underking" of Orkney, and was separately described by the Northumbrian historian Bede as rex potentissimus or "very powerful king".
[21] By the end of the 7th century Fortriu had established a dominant position over most or all of the Picts, one of the most significant developments in the history of early medieval Scotland,[22] described by historians as the Verturian Hegemony.
[28] A series of campaigns under Onuist son of Uurguist between 731 and 741 saw this power extended further with the invasion and conquest of the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata, located in the area of modern-day Argyll.
[31] The dominance of Fortriu and the House of Uurguist, which had lasted for over fifty years and for much of that period had also extended to Gaelic Dál Riata and the Britons of Strathclyde, came to a sudden and dramatic end with a decisive defeat by Vikings in 839.
[33] The fact that so many were slain, including the kings of both Fortriu and Dál Riata, suggests that Wen had had time to gather his forces, and that this was the culmination of a campaign rather than a fortuitous raid.
[34] Although the chronology of written sources is confused, they probably occupied Fortriu for three years and took hostages,[35] before attacking Dumbarton Rock in 870 and returning to Dublin in 871, bringing with them "a great prey of English, and Britons and Picts.
[37] The Annals of Ulster record the "men of Fortriu" killing the Scandinavian leader Ímar ua Ímair in 904, four years after it had started using the description ri Alban for the King of Alba.
[42] From the 19th century until 2006 most historians believed that the kingdom recorded as Fortriu in the Irish annals lay south of the Mounth in present-day central Scotland, based on the work of E. W. Robertson and W. F.
[4] This argument is based on unsound etymology, however, as Fothriff derives from the Gaelic words foithir and Fib and means "district appended to Fife", while Fortriu is related to the earlier Latin name Verturiones.
[4] Skene, in his 3 volume work Celtic Scotland: A History of Ancient Alban, published between 1876 and 1880, identified Fortriu with Strathearn and Menteith, the first province listed in the 12th century document De Situ Albanie, on the basis that a battle recorded by the Chronicle of the Kings of Alba as taking place in Sraith Herenn was also recorded by the Annals of Ulster as the killing of Ímar ua Ímair by the "Men of Fortriu".
