At the time of the Roman abandonment of Britain the Picts were under the sway of a king or chieftain named Drust, son of Erp, concerning whom the only record remaining is, that he lived a hundred years and fought a hundred battles. In fact, little is known with certainty of the Pictish history for upwards of one hundred years after the departure of the Romans, although some ancient chronicles afford us lists of Pictish kings or princes, a chronological table of whom, from Drust downwards, will be found at the end of this chapter. The Pictish chronicle contains the names of thirty-six others who are said to have reigned before Drust, but these are generally regarded as almost entirely spurious. Before proceeding farther with the Pictish history, it may be proper to give a brief account of the settlement of the Irish Scots or Dalriads, as they are frequently called, in the Pictish territory. The time of the settlement of the Scots in present Scotland was for long a subject of disputation, the early Scottish historians, from a false and unscrupulous patriotism, having pushed it back for many centuries before its actual occurrence. This dispute is now, however, fairly set at rest, there being no foundation for believing that the Scots found their way from Ireland to Scotland earlier than a century or two before the birth of Christ. As we have already seen, we find the first mention of the Scots in Ammianus Marcellinus about the year 360 A.D.; and their name occurs in the same connection frequently afterwards, during the Roman occupation of Scotland. Burton[81] is of opinion that the migration did not take place at any particular time or under any particular leader, but that it was gradual, that the Scots “oozed” out of Ireland upon the western coast of Scotland. It belongs to the history of Ireland to trace the origin and fix the race of the Scots, to settle the time of their coming into Ireland, and discover whence they came. Some suppose that they migrated originally from Britain to Ireland, while Innes and others bring them either from Scandinavia or Spain, and connect them with the Scyths, asserting that Scot is a mere corruption of Scyth, and dating the settlement at about the commencement of the Christian era. The Irish traditions connect them with a certain Scota, daughter of Pharaoh, and date their coming to Ireland upwards of 1,000 years B.C. E. W. Robertson[82] and others consider them to have been Irish Picts or Cruithne.