CALEDONIA, the ancient name of Scotland. From the testimonies of Tacitus, Dio, and Solinus, we find, that the ancient Caledonia comprehended all that country lying to the north of the rivers Forth and Clyde. In proportion as the Silures or Cimbri advanced towards the north, the Caledonians being circum-
scribed within narrower limits, were forced to transmute into the islands which crowd the western coasts of Scotland. It is in this period, probably, we ought to place the first great migration of the British Gael into Ireland; that kingdom being much nearer to the promontory of Galloway and Cantire than many of the Scottish isles are to the continent of North Britain.
To the country which the Caledonians possessed, they gave the name of Caël-doch; which is the only appellation the Scots, who speak the Gaelic language, know for their own division of Britain. Caël-doch is a compound, made up of Gaël or Caël, the first colony of the ancient Gauls who transmigrated into Britain, and doch, a district or division of a country. The Romans, by transposing the letter l in Cael, and by softening into a Latin termination the ch of doch, formed the well-known name of Caledonia.
When the tribes of North Britain were attacked by the Romans, they entered into associations, that, by uniting their strength, they might be more able to repel the common enemy. The particular name of that tribe, which either its superior power or military reputation placed at the head of the association, was the general name given by the Romans to all the confederates. Hence it is that the Mæatæ, who with other tribes inhabited the districts of Scotland lying southward of the frith, and the Caledonians, who inhabited the west and north-west parts, have engrossed all the glory which belonged in common, though in an inferior degree, to all the other nations settled of old in North Britain. It was for the same reason that the name of Mæatæ was entirely forgotten by foreign writers after the third century, and that of the Caledonians themselves but seldom mentioned after the fourth.
Britons, Caledonians, Mæatæ, Barbarians, are the names constantly given to the old inhabitants of North Britain, by Tacitus, Herodian, Dio, Spartian, Vopiscus, and other ancient writers. The successors of these Britons, Caledonians, Mæatæ, and barbarians, are called Picts, Scots, and Attacots, by some Roman writers of the fourth century.
The origin of the appellations Scoti and Picti, introduced by later Roman authors, has occasioned much controversy among the antiquarians of these days. The dispute seems now to be fully decided by some learned critics of the present century, whose knowledge of the Gaelic language assisted their investigation. See SCOTLAND, PICTS, and HIGHLANDERS.