Note 62 — Chapter II · THE ROMAN PROVINCE IN SCOTLAND.

Epidium has generally been identified with the island of Isla, from the natural enough inference that its name connects it with the Epidium promontorium, and consequently historians have been much at a loss where to look for the two Ebudas, and have resorted to mere conjecture. The Epidii seem, however, to have occupied Lorn as well as Kintyre, and the name would be appropriate to any island on that coast. Ptolemy places the two Ebudas close together, and makes them the most westerly of the group, while Maleus or Mull is the most northerly, placing it between Engaricenna and Epidium, which latter is the most easterly; and a comparison between Ptolemy’s positions and those of the islands south of the point of Ardnamurchan seems to leave little doubt as to their identity.

Ptolemy’s five Ebudas with Monarina form the group of islands frequently mentioned in ancient Irish documents as ‘Ara, Ile, Rachra acus innsi orcheana,’ that is Arran, Isla, Rachra, and the other islands.