In AD 208, the Roman Emperor Septimus Severus travelled to Britain in order to deal with the barbarian threat in the north. Leading an army over Hadrian’s Wall, he set about systematically ravaging the land and slaughtering the native population, the Caledonians. His tactics were brutally effective, and the Caledonians ceased to exist as any kind of coherent group.
For nearly a hundred years, the north of Roman Britain knew peace. But in the year 297 a new group came raiding over the Roman walls, a group called the Picts.
The Name of the Picts
Common thought has always been that the name “Pict” derived from the Latin word “Pictus” meaning painted, and referred to the habit of these people of either painting their bodies, or, more likely, wearing elaborate tattoos.
There are several problems to this theory, however. First, by the time of the Picts, the Romans had already encountered numerous tribes who used tattoos, but never used the word to refer to either the tribes or their tattoos.
Second, other peoples such as the Norse and Irish also referred to these people with a word that sounded similar to Pict. Given all of the available evidence, it is most likely that Pict was a proper name for the people and its similarity to the Latin “painted” is a coincidence.
Origins and Disappearance of the Picts
More of a mystery than even their name is the origins of the Picts. Some theorize that they are the descendants of the Caledonians, but more common is the thought that they arrived by boat sometime between AD 208-297, but from where, no-one knows. Their language was a form of Gaelic, but not one that had been previously heard on the island.
So out of mystery this new group came and dominated Scotland. For the next 550 years, the Picts fought against both their neighbours to the south (the Romans and later the Anglo-Saxons) and against a new tribe of invaders known as the Scots who had come over from Ireland. In the year 858, the Scots finally got the upper hand, and the Picts were absorbed into a new nation, Scotland.
The Picts left little behind for historians or archaeologists to study. They did not write books or build long-lasting structures. Instead they left just a few standing stones, carved with their symbols. What little we know of the Picts we know from outside sources. They are a race vanished from history. They have left no voice behind for us to understand them.
