The invariable Celtic principle of “division” is plainly traceable amongst the population of Northern Britain in their separation from a very early period into Caledones and Mæatæ, Dicaledones and Vecturiones, and latterly into Northern and Southern Picts. Towards the middle of the third century, when Dion wrote, the form of their government was still “democratic;” in other words, the various states or confederacies into which the Pictish people were divided, like the early Gauls and Southern Britons, were still ignorant of the principle of one elective or hereditary ruler.[31] The earliest bond of union may probably be traced to the time when they united under one common leader to resist or assail the Roman legionaries; and out of the _Dux_ or _Toshach_ elected for the occasion, like Galgacus, and exercising a paramount though temporary authority, arose the _Ardrigh_ or supreme king, after some popular or ambitious chieftain had prolonged his power by successful wars, or procured his election to this prominent station for life. The nature of the sovereignty thus established, which was fully recognised in the days of Columba, resembled the dominion of the Ardrigh amongst the kindred Gael of Ireland, or of the Unben amongst the earlier Cymri, differing in a remarkable manner from the royal authority as it existed amongst the Welsh of a later age. _Breith_, or _Law_, was at the root of the later Welsh system. Privilege was _Breint_, the noble or man of privilege amongst the Southern Welsh, _Breyr_; the king, _Breen-hyn_--the senior _Brehon_ or _Lawgiver_, the hereditary instead of the elective _Vergobreith_. In the laws of Howel Dha, the representative of the Druid, or of the noble enrolled amongst the Druids, the _Cynghellwr_ who “divided with the _Brenin_” evidently took precedence of the _Maer_, the representative of the military noble; whilst the _Rhy_, and _Twysawg_, or _Rex_ and _Dux_ (though met with in the Welsh dictionaries), are never found in these laws. With the Gael, however, it was the _Righ_ and the _Toshach_ who were most prominent; the _Brehon_ had no such intimate connection with the throne or with the privileged classes, and in the charter of king Robert Bruce to the Thane of Cawdor, it was the _Judex_ who held his lands under the Thane or _Toshach_. The Gaelic _Ardrigh_ represented the permanent _Toshach_, not the _Vergobreith_, the permanent holder of the office of _Vercingetorix_, the head of a wide confederacy bound together less by the ties of blood, or by an authority confirmed by the sacerdotal order, than by the actual power of the supreme ruler confirmed by the exaction of hostages.[32]