History of Scotland The Romans eventually withdrew to a line in what is now northern England, building the fortification known as Hadrian's Wall from coast to coast. Around 141, the Romans undertook a reoccupation of southern Scotland, moving up to construct a new "limes" between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde, which became the Antonine Wall. The largest Roman construction inside Scotland, it is a sward-covered wall made of turf around high, with nineteen forts. It extended for . Having taken twelve years to build, the wall was overrun and abandoned soon after 160. The Romans retreated to the line
Scotland during the Roman Empire 367. The era saw the emergence of the earliest historical accounts of the natives. The most enduring legacies of Rome, however, were Christianity and literacy, both of which arrived indirectly via Irish missionaries. Scotland had been inhabited for thousands of years before the Romans arrived. However, it is only during the Greco-Roman period that Scotland is recorded in writing. The work "On the Cosmos" by Aristotle or Pseudo-Aristotle mentions two "very large" islands called Albion (Great Britain) and Ierne (Ireland). The Greek explorer and geographer Pytheas visited Britain sometime between 322 and 285 and may have circumnavigated the mainland, which