AT THE DAWN OF SCOTLAND'S HISTORY

TIME CAPSULE FOR PICTLAND
B.C.	The chambered cairns, the brocks and vitrified forts in Ross-shire attest to a people skilled in construction for thousands of years.
76	January 24 - Birth of Publius Aelius Hadrianus, who built Hadrian's Wall to cut off Scotland from the rest of Britain.
79	Romans under Julius Agricola advance to and beyond the Forth-Clyde isthmus fighting off warring bands of Celts
84	The Battle of Mons Graupius fought in the Pictish heartland (NE Scotland at Ardoch) won by Roman general Agricola against the ten thousand 'Caledonians' led by Calgacus, the Swordsman; Tacitus provides the first written record of an historical event in Scotland
114	Lightning attacks by 'Caledonians' wiped out the Roman 9th legion (south of the Antonine Wall)
139	Antonine's Wall was built
c.150	Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus) , Greek mathematician and geographer produced a map of "the World", and allegedly labelled the Decantae, "the noble folk" as people living in the region between the Beauly Firth and the Strath of Kildonan [The interesting item is of course one of Ptolemy's biggest mistakes: Scotland is rotated clockwise by about 90°. The error occurs at a very specific place, extending from the Solway Firth to Newcastle. No coincidence at all that this is almost exactly the line of Hadrian's Wall: all of a sudden the Roman geographer loses all his land data and has to rely on pilot's accounts, with choppy seas and strong currents accounting for the bad data. Ptolemy may well have had only a single report for the navigation of the top of Scotland; what else could he do?]
180-212	Hadrian's Wall was crossed and Antonine's Wall was out of commission when the Southern 'Maeatae' (or 'Verturiones' of Fortrenn) and the Highland 'Caledonians' joined forces against the Romans
296	the Pictish people or "painted ones" were first named in Roman literature by the writer Eumenius
305-306	the campaign of Roman general Constantius Chlorus against the 'Caledonians' and other Picts
325	Greek explorer Pytheas sailed around the Pretanic Islands (Britain)
343	Roman general Constans battled the Picts
363-368	The two tribes of Picts and the Scots of Ireland were allied during cross-border raids against the Romans; in 360, Roman literature describes the Irish warriors as 'Scots' ; in 368, Picts and Scots are joined by Saxon tribes in plundering London
372-453	Attilla, the Hun, invades Europe and the Roman Empire, ultimately causing the departure of the Romans from the British Isles
382	Scots and Picts invaded Britannia
396-398	Picts raided Britannia ... with further skirmishes up to the 450's
409	the Romans leave the Britons to defend themselves against the Picts and the Scots
503	Scots establish the kingdom of Dalriada in Argyll
Late 400's to 845	evidence that Pictish art and culture were fluorishing
554-584	an exceptionally powerful King Bridei ruled the Picts; defeated King Gabran of the Scots, but did not expel them
563	May 12 - St. Columba (Colum Cille) lands in Iona from Ireland; St. Columba's biographer, Adamnan, describes the journey of the Irish saint to the court of King Bridei near Loch Ness; the Pict did not understand the Gael version of the Celtic language, and Columba needed interpreters
597	June 9 - St. Columba died on Iona
603	January 13 - Death of St Mungo, patron saint of Glasgow (and also known as St Kentigern).
685	May 20 - Picts slaughtered the armies of the Anglo-Saxons on May 20 at Nechtansmere south of Forfar in Angus. This halted the northward advance of the Angles from Northumbria.
704	September 23 - Death of St Adamnan, biographer of St Columba.
714	September 1 - Death of St Giles, patron saint of Edinburgh (and Elgin).
731	the great Bede recorded the four groups of people living in Britain as Britons, Picts, Scots and Angles