In all these writings, from the first mention of the name Scots down to the fall of the Western Empire in the fifth century, the Scots are Irish raiders of Roman Britain. Whitley Stokes took the name Scottus to be cognate with certain Slavonic and Germanic words and to mean "master" or "possessor." But why should a people who until the fourth century were named Iverni or Hiberni acquire in the fourth century a new name meaning "masters" or "possessors"? It is not in the quality of possessors that they appear in the records of the time, but rather in the quality of dispossessors. Raiding, fighting, wandering, wasting, these are the occupations of the Scots in that age; and if they acquired a new name, it is to these occupations that we might expect the new name to have reference. Therefore, though it may appear audacious on my part, I venture on a different explanation. A gloss on the name of St. Scoithín in the Festilogy of Oengus says that he was named Scoithín _ar in scothad imdechta dognid.i. dul do Ruain i n-oenlo ocus toidecht uathi i n-oenló aile_, "from the _scothadh_ of travelling that he practised, namely, going [from Ireland] to Rome in a single day and returning thence [to Ireland] in another single day." The verb _scothaim_ or _scaithim_ has a group of meanings all signifying a rapid cutting or striking movement. Dictionaries give the meanings "I lop, prune, cut off, strip, destroy, disperse, scutch [flax], beat a sheaf of corn to make it shed its grain." _Scothbhualadh_ means a light threshing; _scoithneán_, a sieve for winnowing grain. _Scottus_, then, in this view, was originally a common noun meaning a raider or reaver, a depredator who worked by rapid incursions and retirements. It was probably a Gaulish word, for its earliest known use is in various inscriptions of Roman Gaul, in which it is used as a personal name. For example, an inscription of the year 224 records a votive offering by Marcus Quintius Florentinus and others, the children of Caius Quintius Scottus. Here Scottus is the distinctive byname of the father and is not found in the names of his children.