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Marinus, Ptolemy and the Turning of Scotland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Barri Jones  and
Ian Keillar
Barri Jones
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Manchester
Ian Keillar
Affiliation:
Elgin, Moray
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Extract

One of the most puzzling problems of ancient geography relates to the turning of Scotland, whereby in Ptolemy's map of the British Isles Britain (or Albion) is abruptly turned to the east from approximately Ptolemy's latitude 59° north, effectively the Tyne/Solway line. As a result the area we now refer to as Scotland is shown coherently through its coefficients but overall at approximately right-angles to the southern part of the country. Ptolemy's account of the geography of ancient Britain is fundamental to any study of the province, and particularly the military campaigning in the North. It is therefore essential as a subject of study for anyone involved in the evolution of the province or, at a very different remove, the underlying problems of understanding the contribution of ancient geographers to what Ptolemy himself called ‘chorography’, the geography of a region or particular area.

Type
Articles
Information
Britannia , Volume 27 , November 1996 , pp. 43 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Barri Jones and Ian Keillar 1996. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 G.D.B. Jones and D.J. Mattingly, An Atlas of Roman Britain (1992), 16–23, figs 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.6.

2 A.L.F. Rivet and C. Smith, The Place Names of Roman Britain (1981), 103–47.

3 Bradley, H., ‘Ptolemy's Geography of the British Isles’, Archeologia xlviii (1885), 379–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 T.G. Rylands, The Geography of Ptolemy Elucidated (1893), based on the text of the Geography edited by C. Muller and C.T. Fischer (1883).

5 Flinders-Petrie, W.M., ‘Ptolemy's Geography of Albion’, PSAS lii (1917), 12–26.Google Scholar

6 Richmond, L.A., ‘Ptolemaic Scotland’, PSAS lvi (1921), 288–301.Google Scholar

7 R. Rebuffat shows that the more correct transliteration should be the better attested – castra cum pinnis, ‘the camp with merlons’, Latomus xliii.l (1984), 10–15.Google Scholar The authors think it unlikely that this term could have been applied by Ptolemy's sources to a marching camp. In this context nineteenth-century antiquarian sources show that the well-known bull reliefs from Burghead derive not from the interior of the site but from demolition of the rampart. Moreover, most of the recorded examples (many of which are now lost) fall within a similar size range. Their recovery from the rubble of the seaward-side of the rampart and the comparable size suggests that they formed either decorative features of the upper course of the stone revetmėnt or merlons along its crest. This argument will be developed in a separate article.

8 I.A. Richmond, Roman and Native in North Britain (1958), 3–27; see also R.M. Ogilvie and I.A. Richmond, Cornelii Taciti de Vita Agricolae (1967), 31–46.

9 Tierney, J.J., ‘Ptolemy's Map of Scotland’, JHS lxxix (1959), 132–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Mann, J., PSAS cxx (1990), 61.Google Scholar

11 op. cit. (note 2), III.

12 Claudii Ptolemaii, Cosmographia Tabiulae (1990), with introduction by L. Pagnani; A.E. Nordenskiold, Facsimile Atlas (1973), 142–4.

13 op. cit. (note 2), I and 6.

14 Most recently edited by M.J. Casson (1989).

15 Almagest II.6. It is generally thought that the work was written up to c. A.D. 141 prior to the Geography. Differences between the two works include changing names for Britain and Ireland, Great and Little Britain of the Almagest giving way to Albion and Inernia in the later work.

16 Plutarch, De defectu oraculorum, 410A and 434C (A.D. 83–84); RIB 662; Tacitus, Agricola 10.4.

17 op. cit. (note 2), 42; Thule was located by Pytheas in the late fourth century B.C., but apparently not thereafter relocated. Subsequently it came to be treated in secondary sources as simply the proverbial world's end. Any attempt at more detailed identification needs to take account that it lay ‘six days sailing northwards from Britain’ and very close to the Arctic circle as attested by reference to the phenomenon of the midnight sun.

18 op. cit. (note 6).

19 The evidence of this kind is clear on the east coast as far north as the Moray Firth. The name Varar given by Ptolemy is identifiable with the River Farrar (Strathfarrar, etc.) evidently the earlier nomenclature for the Scoto-Norman Beauly, a name that supplanted it for the lower reaches of the river and estuary. While this represents the adoption of an indigenous nomenclature, the occurrence of a purely Latin term, Aha Ripa, nearby is of parallel interest. The given co-ordinates suggest that it should be identified with the North and South Sutor, the cliffs guarding the approach to the Cromarty Firth rather than the Ord further north on the Sutherland coast.

20 op. cit. (note 1).

21 We would like to thank those who have helped the gestation of this article, not least Parva Books, Wigton, Leicester, whose magnificent colour reproduction of the 1480 Codex Napoletanus set our thoughts in train. Keith Maude of the Department of Archaeology, University of Manchester, kindly prepared the figures. The text, which was delivered to the inaugural Roman Archaeology Conference at Reading University, has seen many improvements through the scrutiny of Patricia Faulkner, Richard Gregory, and Keith Maude.