Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/496

 478 CALEDONIA. plural form of which is cekddon. In the sanie hingaage called = thistle stalks. Name for name, the former of these words gives ns the preferable etymology for Caledonia. Gruwth for growth, that of the thutle predominates over that of timber. As &r as the opinion of the native critics goes, the former etymology is the more current Whatever may be its meaning, the root Ceded (or Caledon) is British. It may or may not have been native as well, ». e. if we suppose (adoubtful point) that the Caledonii were notably different from the Britanni. Pliny (iv. 16. s. 3D) is the first author in whose text it appears; but, as it appears in Ptulemy (ii. 3) also, axid as Ptolemy's sources were in certain cases earlier than those of Pliny, or even Caesar, there is no reason for believing it to have been a name one whit newer than that of any other ancient nation. The Dicalidones of Ammianus Marcellinus (xxvii. 8) are most probably the same population under a dedgnation augmented by a de- rivational or inflexional prefix. The import of the term is not less doubtful than its etymology. With the later writers it is wide; and Caledama is the term expressive of one of the great primary divisions of the populations of the Britannic islanders; coinciding, nearly, with the present kingdom of Scotland, as opposed to England and Ireland. But, assuredly, this was not it;9 ori- ginal power. Aristotle knows no distinction between southern and northern Britain. He merely knows the one between Albion (Great Britain) and leme (Ireland). Mela differs from Aristotle only in writing Britannia instead of Albion, The Orcades and the Hemodae (^Hebrides) he knows; but he knows no CaUdonia, Pliny, as aforesaid, is the first author who men^ tions Caiedonia; Tacitus (Agr. 11) the one who deals with it most fully. The authorities, however, are the same in both. The one wrote as the biogra- pher of Agricola; the other evidently bases hb state- ments on the information supplied by that com- mander, — " triginta prope jam annis notitiam ejus Bomanis armis non ultra vicinitatem bilvae Cale- doniae propagantibus." (Plin. L c.) Solinus gives us the following mysterious passage. He speaks of the Ccdedonicus angulus^ and con tinues — " in quo recessu Ulyxem Caledoniae ap- pulsum mauifestat ara Graecis litteris scripta votum" (c 22). To refer this to a mistaken or inaccurate application of the well-known passage of Tacitus, wherein he speaks of Ulysses having been carried as far as Germany, of his having founded Asciburgium, of his liaving an altar raised to his honour, and of the name of Laertes being inscribed thereon (^Germ. 3), would be to cut the Gordian knot rather than to unloose it ; besides which, the ex- planation of the Caledonian Ulysses by means of the German would only be the illustration of obscurum per ahscurius. Again, the traditions that connect the name of Ulysses with Lisbon (^Ulyssae pons) must be borne in mind. Upon the whole, the state- ment of Solinus is inexplicable; though, possibly, when the history of Fiction has received more criticism than it has at present, some small light may be thrown upon it. It may then appear tluit Ulysses^ and many other so-called Hellenic heroes like him — are only Greek in the way that Orlando or Uinaldo are Italian, i. e, referable to the country whose poems have most immoitalised them. A Phoenician, Gallic, Iberic, or even a German Ulysses, whose exploits formed the basis of a Greek poem, is, CALEDONDL in the mind of the present writer, no more im- probable than the fact of a Welsh Arthur celebrated in the poems of France and Italy. In continuing our notice of the earlier classical texts, Ptolemy will be taken before Tacitus. He presents more than one difficulty. When Ammianus Marcellinus (xxvii. 8) speaks of the Picts being divided into two geiUeSj the Di-calidones and Vec- turiones, it is difficult to believe that he means by the former term any population different from that of the simple Caledonians, His whole text con- firms this view. Equally difficult is it to separate the />»-calidones from ^e Oceantts Deuoaledonius (^^ClKtavbs KoKo^fttyos AovriKoXriMvuis) of Ptolemy (ii. 3) ; however difficult it may be to determine whether the ocean gave the name to the population or the population to the ocean. Now, the Deucaledoiuan ocean is on the southrtoestem side of Scotland ; at least, it is more west than east. The Chersonesus of the Novantae, and the estuary of the Clota (the mull of Galloway and the mouth of the Clyde) are among the first localities noticed in the JDescripHon of the Northern Side of the Britannic Island Albion^ above which lies the Ocean called Den- caUdonian. Now the Caledonii of Ptolemy are to a certain extent the same as the ooastmen of the Deucali- donian Ocean, and, to a certain extent, they are difierent. Their area begins at the L^amnonian Baxf and reaches to the Varar Aestuar^, and, to the north of these, lies the Caledonian Forest (KoAif- b6ifios Bpofibi^ Ptol. I c). Dealing with Loch Fyne and the Murray Firth as the equivalents to the Lelamnonian Bay and the Varar Aeshuary^ the Caledonii stretch across ScoUand fnxn Inverary to Inverness. Still, in the eyes of Ptolemy, these ara only one out of the many of the North British populations. The Cantae, the Vacomagi, and others are conterminous with them, and, to all ap- pearances, bear names of equal value. There is no such thing in Ptolemy as Caledonia and the dnrt- sions and sub-divisions of Caledonia — there is nothing generic^ so to say, in his phraseology. The Caledonia of Tacitus is brought as far south as the Grampians at least, possibly as far south as the valleys of the Forth and Clyde. The Cale- donia, too, of Tacitus is more or less generic^ at least the Hwesti seem to have been considered to be a people of Caledonia just as Kent is » part of England. Putting the above statements together, lookmg at the same time to certain other circumstances, such as the physical condition of the country and the nature of the Ptolemaic authorities, we may pro- bably come to the belief that, until the invasion of Agricola, Caledonia was a word of a comparaUvely restricted signification — that it denoted a woody district — that it extended from Loch FjTie to the Murray Firth — that the ijcople who inhabited it were called Caledonians by the Britons, and Di-caledonians (Black Caledonians?) by the Hiber- nians — that Ptolemy took his name for the ocean from an Irish, for the people and the forest from a British, source — that the western extension of these proper Ptolemaic Caledotiians came sufficiently near the western extremity of the rampart of Agricola to become known to that commander — and that it was extended by him to all the populations (east as well as west) north of that rampart, so becoming mora and more general. Such seems to bo the history of the word. As t(|