The Dicalydones were mentioned by the 4th century writer

Ammianus Marcellinus Ammianus Marcellinus, occasionally anglicized as Ammian ( Greek: Αμμιανός Μαρκελλίνος; born , died 400), was a Greek and Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquit ...

as one of the two branches of the ''Picti'', the

Picts The Picts were a group of peoples in what is now Scotland north of the Firth of Forth, in the Scotland in the early Middle Ages, Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and details of their culture can be gleaned from early medieval texts and Pic ...

, the inhabitants of modern-day

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

(the other being the ''

Verturiones Fortriu (; ; ; ) was a Pictish kingdom recorded between the 4th and 10th centuries. It was traditionally believed to be located in and around Strathearn in central Scotland, but is more likely to have been based in the north, in the Moray and Ea ...

''). The name bears a striking resemblance to the other historical nomenclature donated to the Picts by classical historians, ''

Caledonii The Caledonians (; or '; , ''Kalēdōnes'') or the Caledonian Confederacy were a Brittonic-speaking (Celtic) tribal confederacy in what is now Scotland during the Iron Age and Roman eras. The Greek form of the tribal name gave rise to the ...

''. Some scholars theorize that the two groups (''Dicalydones'' and ''Caledonii'') are one and the same, and that the other major Pictish tribes, related by

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

as the ''

Vacomagi The Vacomagi were a people of ancient Scotland, known from a single mention of them by the geographer Claudius Ptolemy. Their principal places are known from Ptolemy's map c.150 of ''Albion island of Britannia'' – from the ''First Map of Eur ...

'', '' Venicones'', and '' Taezali'', eventually went on to form the ''

Maeatae The Maeatae were a confederation of tribes that probably lived beyond the Antonine Wall in Roman Britain. The historical sources are vague as to the exact region they inhabited, but an association is thought to be indicated in the names of two h ...

'' mentioned by

Cassius Dio Lucius Cassius Dio (), also known as Dio Cassius ( ), was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of the history of ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...

. Other archaic accounts, which mention the ''Caledonii'' and ''Maeatae'' as the two major Pictish tribes, would seem to corroborate this hypothesis.

References

*Isabel Henderson, ''The Picts,'' Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., New York, 1967. *F.T. Wainwright, Editor, ''The Problem of the Picts,'' First Greenwood Reprinting, New York, 1970. Historical Celtic peoples Picts {{Europe-ethno-group-stub