"hawker@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
" <flink@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:dgtlvd$lg3$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> This raises an interesting point concerning the Antonine Wall. Was it
> maintained by the local people after the Roman's abandoned it?
That is an interesting question. In truth I don't know. I think the wall
was abandoned for the last time about a couple of centuries before the
Roman
withdrawal from Britain. The Romans seem to, at least at certain points
in
time, have come to some kind of agreement or alliance with the Votadini,
and
this tribe are thought to have been used as a buffer. What I've read
seems
to suggest that there was an anti-Roman alliance stretching from the
Brigantes, through the Selgovae, to the tribes north of the Wall who were
forming into the Picts. Various local histories seem to suggest that the
Selgovae in particular suffered from Roman oppression and that the
Votadini
territory seems to have expanded at their expense. The tribes were not
supposedly friendly to each other.
So I don't know if they used the Wall but the Votadini certainly remained
in
control of their territory a long time after the Romans abandoned the
Wall,
and for that matter a long time after the Romans left Britain. If we're
to
believe the accounts from the first millenium then their power was still
centred on Edinburgh around 600AD when they led the attack on the Deirans
at
Catraeth. Again we don't really know but it's suggested that the defeat
they suffered there perhaps enabled the Picts to exploit the situation and
make their presence on the southern shore of the Forth, though this
occupation would have been relatively short term as within half a century
the Anglian Bernician rulers controlled Edinburgh and even for a while
pushed into Pictland itself proper.
It wasn't until the 10thC that the northerners gained a real foothold in
the
Lothian area this time it was the rulers of Alba (the emerging Scotland)
that took control. They had raided extensively at an earlier date.
Kenneth
MacAlpin is said to have sacked Melrose Abbey on four seperate occassions.
The area wasn't officially annexed as such until the Scots defeated the
army
of Bamburgh at the Battle of Carham in 1018. Further west the Stratchlyde
kingdom had become basically a vassalage of the Scottish kingdom and
shortly
after the annexation of Lothian the Scots took full control of Strathclyde
too.
My only point to the other poster was that he has Picts taking over all
this
territory and even Brigantian territory further south more than half a
millenium before Carham. There is absolutely no evidence to back up his
assertions.
Allan
|
