Calgacus, the first Caledonian to have a recorded identity, speaks before the battle of Mons Graupius, in which the Romans defeated the assembled tribes of the north:
"We, the last men on earth, the last of the free, have been shielded till to-day by the very remoteness and the seclusion for which we are famed. We have enjoyed the impressiveness of the unknown. But to-day the boundary of Britain is exposed; beyond lies no nation, nothing but waves and rocks and the Romans."
Tacitus, Agricola
