Caledonia

Caledonia is the Latin name given by the Romans to the land in today's Scotland north of their province of Britannia, beyond the frontier of their empire. Modern use is as a romantic or poetic name for Scotland as a whole.

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Original usage

The original use of the name, by Tacitus, Ptolemy, Lucan and Pliny the Elder, referred to the area (or parts of the area) also known as Pictavia or Pictland north of the Antonine Wall in today's Scotland.[1] The name may be related to that of a Pictish tribe, the Caledonii, one amongst several in the area, though perhaps the dominant tribe which would explain the binomial Caledonia/Caledonii. Their name can be found in Dùn Chailleann, the Scottish Gaelic word for the town of Dunkeld meaning "fort of the Caledonii", and in that of the mountain Sìdh Chailleann or Schiehallion, the "fairy [hill] of the Caledonians". According to Historia Brittonum the site of the seventh battle of the mythical Arthur was a forest in what is now Scotland, called Coit Celidon in early Welsh. Traces of such mythology have endured until today in Midlothian: near the town centre of Edinburgh stands an old volcanic mountain called Arthur's Seat.[2]

The north-west ridge of Schiehallion

There are other hypotheses regarding the origin of Caledonia (and Scotia). According to Moffat (2005) the name derives from caled, the P-Celtic word for "hard". This suggests the original meaning may have been "the hard (or rocky) land" although it is possible it meant "the land of the hard men".[3] Keay and Keay (1994) state that the word is "apparently pre-Celtic".[4]

Location

The exact location of what the Romans called Caledonia in the early stages of Britannia is uncertain, and the boundaries are unlikely to have been fixed until the building of Hadrian's Wall. From then onwards Caledonia stood to the north of the wall, and to the south was Britannia, not the island but the Roman province.[5] During the brief Roman military incursions into central and northern Scotland,[6] the Scottish Lowlands were indeed absorbed into the province of Britannia, and the name was also used by the Romans, prior to their conquest of the southern and central parts of the island, to refer to the whole island of Great Britain. Once the Romans had built a second wall further to the north (the Antonine Wall) and their garrisons advanced north likewise, the developing Roman-Britons to the south of the wall had trade relations with the Picts to the north of the wall, as testified by archaeological evidence, much of it available at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Modern usage

The modern use of "Caledonia" in English and Scots is as a romantic or poetic name for Scotland as a whole.[4] An example is the song "Caledonia", a folk ballad written by Dougie MacLean, published in 1979 on the album of the same name and covered by various other artists since, including Amy Macdonald.[7][8]

The name has also been widely used commercially, by such organisations as British Caledonian and Caledonian MacBrayne.

Ptolemy's account also referred to the Caledonia Silva, an idea still recalled in the modern expression "Caledonian Forest", although the woods are much reduced in size since Roman times.[9]

Some scholars will argue that the name "Scotland" itself is derived from Scotia, a Latin term first used for Ireland (also called Hibernia by the Romans) and later for Scotland, the Scoti peoples having originated in Ireland and resettled in Scotland.[10] Another, post conquest, Roman name for the island of Great Britain was Albion, which is cognate with another Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland: Alba.

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Moffat (2005) pp. 21-22.
  2. ↑ Encyclopedia Mythica
  3. ↑ Moffat (2005) p. 22.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Keay (1994) p. 123.
  5. ↑ Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) though, states that "a tribe of Caledones" are "named by the geographer Ptolemy as living within boundaries which are now unascertainable".
  6. ↑ The military presence of Rome lasted for little more than 40 years for most of Scotland and only as much as 80 years in total anywhere. At no time was even half of Scotland's land mass under Roman control. See Hanson (2003) p. 198.
  7. ↑ "Rock and roll years: the 1970s" (16 October 2003) The Scotsman. Retrieved 17 January 2009.
  8. ↑ "Biography" dougiemaclean.com. Retrieved 17 January 2009.
  9. ↑ Smout et al. (2007) pp. 20-25. The extent of the reduction is a matter of debate. This association with a Silva (literally the flora), by extension, forest or woods reinforces the explanation that Caledonia was a forest or forested area named after the Caledonii or these were named after the woods where they dwelt.
  10. ↑ Bede used a Latin form of the word Scots as the name of the Gaels of Dál Riata. Reference: Roger Collins, Judith McClure; Beda el Venerable, Bede (1999). The Ecclesiastical History of the English People: The Greater Chronicle ; Bede's Letter to Egbert. Oxford University Press. pp. 386. ISBN. 

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