Claudian the poet, writing, about 397, in praise of Honorius, mentions, among other actions of Theodosius, the grandfather of that emperor, his having subdued the Picts, who were fitly so named,[32] and makes various other references to this people and the Scots, which show that these two in combination were troubling the Roman provincials not a little.[33]
Such are most of the scanty details given by the only contemporary historians who take any notice of the inhabitants of North Britain; and the unprejudiced reader will see that the foundation thus afforded upon which to construct any elaborate theory is so narrow that every such theory must resemble a pyramid standing on its apex, liable at the slightest touch to topple over and be shattered to pieces. It appears to us that all the conclusions which it is safe to draw from the few facts stated by the contemporary Roman historians are, that at the commencement of the Christian era Caledonia proper, or the Highlands, was inhabited by a people or peoples apparently considerable in number, and who in all probability had been settled there for a considerable time, part of whom at least were known to the Romans by the name of Caledonians. That these Caledonians, those of them at any rate with whom Agricola came in contact in the first century, were red or fair haired and large limbed, from which Tacitus inferred that they were of German extraction. In the beginning of the third century there were at least two divisions of the inhabitants of Caledonia,--the Caledonians and Mæats,--the former inhabiting the country to the north of the Grampians, and the latter, in all probability, that to the south and south-east of these mountains. They appear to have been in many respects in a condition little removed from that of savages, although they must have made wonderful attainments in the manufacture of implements of war.
In the latter part of the third century we found the Highlanders spoken of under a new name, _Picti_, which the Roman historians at least, undoubtedly understood to be the Latin word meaning ‘painted,’[34] and which all the best modern writers believe to have been imposed by the Romans themselves, from the fact that the indomitable Caledonians had retained the custom of self-painting after all the Romanized Britons had given it up. There is the strongest probability that the Caledonians spoken of as Picts by Eumenius were the same as the Caledonians of Tacitus, or that the Caledonians and Picts were the same people under different names. The immediate cause for this change of name we have no means of ascertaining. It is in every way improbable that the Picts were a new people, who had come in upon the Caledonians, and supplanted them some time after Agricola’s invasion. The Romans were constantly coming into contact with the Caledonians from the time of Agricola till they abandoned Britain entirely, and had such a supplantation taken place, it certainly could not have been done quietly, and without the cognizance of the Romans. But we find no mention in any contemporary historian of any such commotion, and we know that the inhabitants of the Highlands never ceased to harass the British provincials, showing that they were not much taken up with any internal disturbance. Indeed, writers who adopt the most diverse opinions on other points in connection with the Pictish question are all agreed as to this, that the Caledonians and Picts were the same people.[35]