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A Revised Account of the Inscriptions of the Northern 1'Igts. by John Rhys, M.A., Ll.D., Hon. Mem. S.A. Scot., Principal of Jesu

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A Revised Account of the Inscriptions of the Northern 1'Igts. by John Rhys, M.A., Ll.D., Hon. Mem. S.A. Scot., Principal of Jesu VII. A REVISED ACCOUN E INSCRIPTIONTH F O E TNORTHER TH F O S N 1'IGTS. BY JOHN RHYS, M.A., LL.D., HON. MEM. S.A. SCOT., PRINCIPAL OF JESUS COLLEGE, AND PUOFESSOB OF CELTIC, OXFORD. Some live years ago I attempted a comprehensive account of the ancient inscriptions north of the Forth, and ventured on speculations as to the language and race of the Picts (see these Proceedings, vol. xxvi. 263-351, als'b pp. 411, 412), It seems to me that it is now time to survey the materials again, partly because their number has since increased, and partly because I committed various blunders in my paper, some of fact and some of conjecture. I attempted then to prove the Pictish language relate o Basquet d t whethe bu ;s relate i t i notr r o d , my attemp o prov t s tbee ha e n s i thapronounced t i t d doubtlesan , s justly pronounced, a failure. As regards those, however, who believe the Picts to have spoken as their native language a Celtic dialect, either • like Goideli r Brythonico c y positiom , s unchangedi n I :stil l regard Present:e Paste th n Th 1i What Civilisations i ) 8. (p ? INSCRIPTION NOETHERE TH 5 F 32 O S N PICTS. Pictise th h languag t Celtic challengno y t Aryanm s a eno , o S e. still remains, that if Pictish resembled Gaelic or Welsh, or in fact any Aryan language, those who think so should make good their opinion by giving us a translation of such an inscription, for instance, as the following from. Lunasting n Shetlani , d :— ttocuhettsx : ahehhttmnnn : her.vvevv: nehhtonn. weaknese Th theif so r argument bees sha n evident r somfo e tm oyear n turninso pastd an g; ovee e leaveth th r f o s Revue Celtique, . 398I fin pp n voli ,d. 399vi . e followinth , g passage, whic hventurI point:—"Ae stils quoteth o i e t o t lt i s questio,a e th o st n of the Pictish language, it is useless to. try to decide what it was, by mean f Peanfahel,so e Englisth h spellin e Pictisth f go h pronunciation of a Brythonic word; and the fact is generally overlooked that a language e positioth more n i ,f th thano e f o tsouther n Picts must have been full of Brythonic and Goidelic words. To try in the usual way to settle its affinities is accordingly like proving Welsh to be an Aryan language, by means of its Latin loan-words, which used some years ago to be done." The same view has lately been better put by Professor Zimmer in the Zeitschrift fur Reclitsgeschiclite (Rom. Abth.), xv. 217. After rejecting my argument for connecting Pictish with Basque, and penning some severe criticisms on Skene's treatment of the Picts as Celts usee e h ,followin th s g words :— i seine"Be r mangelhaften sprach- wissenschaftlichen Durchbildung kommt der richtige Grundsatz gar nicht zur Geltung, dass bei den piktischen Namen aus christlicher Zeit nich s ausschlaggebenda t n ihnea d s istn wa , irisch oder kymrisch ist, sondern dasjenige s wedewa , r irisch noch kymrisch, noch keltisch sein kann. Zudem allerdinge di la'ss . ersr e tTh t . z spates r aufgefundenen Inschrifte f Piktenbodenau n ganz ausser Betracht, woraufr Rhyde n i s oben im Text genannten Abhandlung (Pro. Soo. Ant. Soot., 1892, s. 305) mit recht Nachdruck legt. In ihnen tritt das nicht-keltische (nicht- arische) Substrat unter leichter irischer Decke noch kla Tage.u z r " The burden of his paper is, that the distinct racial origin of the Pict s provei s y theib d r institutions, especiall e yPictis th tha f o ht succession t therI shoul Bu , is e. d say a thir, d sourc f argumento e s making for the same conclusion, namely, the study of Pictish art, as I have been recently reminded by Professor Ramsay of Aberdeen. This 326 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY, MAY 9, 1898. however, cannot conveniently be discussed till Dr. Anderson and Mr. Romilly Alien have issued their complete descriptio e Sculpturedth f no Stones of _"Scotland. In the'meantime, one may say that wherever the Pigts found the: subjects.of their pictures e treatmenth , t bolo Jd s dan characteristi r,eadiln ca e yc on mistaketha o n t , it.' /•• : '.. : 1 Since; I. wrote before .on' the Pictish. inscriptions, my friend Mr. Nicholsqn,--Bodley's Librarian, has published^ volume -entitled The Vernacular" Inscriptions of the Ancient .Kingdom !of Alban, 'transcribed, translated, d explained,an d I an hav d Valuableha e hintsn i - from mhi the . matter of ./readings; but when'they come to-be'interpreted, we visually .agree.-to differ. Lord -Sojithesk's papers also, with the excellent . Fig . 1 .Table t. found'a . , t Colchester , ' ' . r (From photographa supplied Britishthe by Museiim.) photographs accompanying them, have alway se utmos o beet th f e no us t e me.formeTh - r wer e eSociet e th followinrea th o t dt y a g dates:— Dec. 13, 1882; Feb. 11, Decd 188an . 4 ; 14, ' 1885. Recently I .hav e had the help of the descriptions of the .stones from Fordoun and Keiss in the Proceedings of 1892 and 1897, and I have :to thank the Society for permission to use some of their illustrations for the purposes'of this paper. Lastlyo thest d e I ,ad wis reference o t h a s mention of the notices which have appeared in the Proceedings of the Society f o Antiquaries f e o 'LondonColchesteth f o r bronze tablet, which, thoug e countrt founth hno n i d yPictse .oth f , still form mosa s t INSCRIPTION NOETHEEE TH 7 F 32 O S N PICTS. appropriate introduction to their inscriptions: see a letter of Mr. Haverfield' e seconth n i sd e Proceedingserieth f o se Londo th f o sn Society, vol. xiv. p. 108. The tablet appears to have been found in the course of excavations e grounmadth n o ed formerly occiipie e cemeterth y b d y belongin, to g and situated within, the walls of the site of the ancient monastery of St. John, of the order of Benedictine monks, in Colchester; for the monastery is believed to have stood on the south side of the town, and outside of the Bomaii walls. The tablet, soon after it was found, was sent, in December 1891, to the London Society of Antiquaries, and it has since been acquire e Britisth y b dh Museum, wher I ehav e see. it n Mr. Haverfleld goes on to say, that the tablet is "of an ordinary shape, oblong wit he endsth ansce t a , measurin 8 incheg n lengti s y 3-b hJ inche n widthi s d inscribean , d with five line f lettero s s formeds i s a , often the case on metal tablets, of small points hammered in. The reading is O • MARTDE • MEDOC1I 0 • CAMP ESIVM • ET VICTORIE ALEXAN DRI • PII FELICIS AVGVSTI • NOSI DONVM • LOSSIO • VEDA • DE • SVO POSVIT • NEPOS • VEPOGENI • CALEDO." This is Englished thus by Mr. Haverfield :—" To Mars Medocius, god of the Campenses, and to the Victory of the Emperor Alexander, a gifn purstow efro s fromhi m Lossio Veda, grandso f Vepogermso n , a Caledonian;" and he points out that the emperor meant was Alexander Severus, whose reign extende o 235dt o thafro2 s , 22 mt we have the date of the inscription within thirteen years in the earlier portiothire th df no century lateA . r communication (xiv. 183) con- tain lettesa f mineo r whicn i , hI suggeste d explaining OAMPESIVM by means of the name of Campsie and the Campsie Fells, in Stirling- shire. But having regard to the fact that we have to treat the inscriber's NOSI as standing for NOSTRI, I am now of opinion that we cannot safely make anythin s CAMPESIVhi f o g t CAMPMbu - ESTRIVM, whatever that may here have meant. Canvpestres occurs 8 32 PROCEEDING E SOCIETY , 18989 TH Y F . O SMA , iu Roman inscription e nortth f e Englano southn i th s f d o h an d Scotland (see Hiibner's JSTos. 510, 1029, 1080, 1084, 1114, 1129)d an , it lends some countenance to the idea that Lossio Veda was a gladiator, or a man who took some part in the doings in the Campus Martius or e similath r institutions whic e Romanth h havy ma se establishen i d imitatio f theno m wherever they were quartered. The inscription has many points of peculiarity, on which I would . refeHaverfield'e readeMr th r o t r s accoun e tabletI wilth d f lo an ,t onls otherwisi yd poingo t thae eou t th tunknown , though there ar e names in Irish literature which would fit fairly well, as far as the phonolog fore th m f y o Medocius concerneds i f theso e Miodhach,s ei On . borne by a son of Dian Cecht, in the story of Nuada's silver hand ; anothe s Afiadach,i r e patronymith n i c O'Miadaig, anglicised O'Meyey (seethe Four Masters, A. D. 1186); and in connection with these may be mentioned the fact that O'Davoren's Glossary records the two words, midliacli, " brav r valiant,eo miadhach,d "an " arrogant, proud," either of which migh e regardeb t e nam th s akia do et n Medociuse Th .
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