Argentocoxos

Argentocoxos was a Caledonian chief in the early 3rd century.[1] He is known from the Historia Romana of Cassius Dio, who gives an account of the campaigns of Septimius Severus in that region.[1] His name means "silver leg" and shows that the Picts were Celts.[2]

After treaty negotiations in the year 210, his wife spoke with the Empress, Julia Augusta, about Caledonian and Roman society. Dio presents the account with a traditional topos, contrasting the vigorous virtue of barbarian life with Roman decadence[3]

...a very witty remark is reported to have been made by the wife of Argentocoxus, a Caledonian, to Julia Augusta. When the empress was jesting with her, after the treaty, about the free intercourse of her sex with men in Britain, she replied: "We fulfil the demands of nature in a much better way than do you Roman women; for we consort openly with the best men, whereas you let yourselves be debauched in secret by the vilest."[4]

References
  1. Richard Oram (2011), "The Earliest Kings c.80–600", The Kings & Queens of Scotland, The History Press, ISBN 9780752470993
  2. Andrew Breeze (2010), Michelle Macleod; Moray Watson (eds.), "Gaelic vocabulary", The Edinburgh Companion to the Gaelic Language, Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 9780748637102, the Pictish leader Argentocoxos 'silver leg' ... whose name helps prove that Pictish was Celtic
  3. Elizabeth Ewan; Rose Pipes, eds. (2019), "Argentocoxos, wife of", The New Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women, Edinburgh University Press, p. 18, ISBN 9781474436298
  4. Cassius Dio, translated by Earnest Cary, "Roman History", Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press
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