A Solidus Minted for Victor
(383/384 or 387 – August 388 in the West (with Magnus Maximus)
My readers have seen me try to grapple with the Victor (Welsh Gwythyr or Gwythur) associated with Uther Pendragon on his elegy poem. I made a few attempts to identify this personage based upon the story featuring him in CULHWCH AND OLWEN. But I've remained unsatisfied with my conclusions.
Why? Chiefly because Uther follows Ambrosius, and the latter is indisputably either the Gallic praetorian prefect of that name and/or his son, St/ Ambrose. The dates for the two Ambrosii stretch from 337 to 397. What I've been asking myself, quite simply, is this: what if Uther is himself yet another temporally displaced hero?
But there is another, equally compelling reason why we should take another look at Victor. For there was really only one (in)famous man of this name in the 4th-5th centuries. And that is Flavius Victor, son of the usurping emperor Magnus Maximus. St. Ambrose was a contemporary of Magnus Maximus.
According to Marged Haycock, editor and translator of the "Marwnat Vthyr Pen", the language strongly suggests that Uther was fighting alongside Gwythyr and not against him. Looking upon this as an exploratory exercise, I decided to go looking for men who protected or fought for Victor. I've long wondered if Pendragon as an epithet could be a literal rendering into Welsh of the Roman military title magister militum or 'master of soldiers.' Do we know of any generals who were associated with Victor?
Indeed we do. And one of them is a very interesting fellow.
Magnus Maximus left his son in the care of two generals - Quintinus and Nanniensus. The former was magister equitum per Gallias under Magnus Maximus. He was killed in 388 during an advance east of the Rhine near Neuss against the advice of his colleague, Nannienus.
As for Nanniensus...
He was comes rei militaris of Valentinianus I and fought the Saxons in 370 AD. In 378, together with the comes domesticorum Mallobaudes in the service of Gratianus [2], he defeated the Alamanni (Lentienses) at Argentaria (near Colmar; Amm. Marc. 31,10,6f.). Because he was of the same rank (pari potestate) as Mallobaudes, he may have been comes utriusque Germaniae.
Gregory of Tours has something to say about him:
9.
The question who was the first of the kings of the Franks is disregarded by many writers. Though the history of Sulpicius Alexander tells much of them, still it does not name their first king, but says that they had dukes. However, it is well to relate what he says of them. For when he tells that Maximus, losing all hope of empire, remained within Aquileia, almost beside himself, he adds: "At that time the Franks burst into the province of Germany under Genobaud, Marcomer, and Sunno, their dukes, and having broken through the boundary wall they slew most of the people and laid waste the fertile districts especially, and aroused fear even in Cologne. And when word was carried to Trèves, Nanninus and Quintinus, the military officers to whom Maximus had intrusted his infant son and the defense of the Gauls, assembled an army and met at Cologne. Now the enemy, laden with plunder after devastating the richest parts of the provinces, had crossed the Rhine, leaving a good many of their men on Roman soil all ready to renew their ravages. An attack upon these turned to the advantage of the Romans, and many Franks perished by the sword near Carbonnière. And when the Romans were consulting after their success whether they ought to cross into Francia, Nanninus said no, because he knew the Franks would not be unprepared and would doubtless be stronger in their own land. And since thi displeased Quintinus and the remainder of the officers, Nanninus returned to Mayence, and Quintinus crossed the Rhine with his army near the stronghold of Neuss, and at his second camp from the river he found dwellings abandoned by their occupants and great villages deserted. For the Franks pretended to be afraid and retired into the more remote tracts, where they built an abattis on the edge of the woods. And so the cowardly soldiers burned all the dwellings, thinking that to rage against them was the winning of victory, and they passed a wakeful night under the burden of their arms. At the first glimmer of dawn they entered the wooded country under Quintinus as commander of the battle, and wandered in safety till nearly midday, entangling themselves in the winding paths. At last, when they found everything solidly shut up by great fences, they struggled to make their exit into the marshy fields which were adjacent to the woods, and the enemy appeared here and there, and sheltered by trunks of trees or standing on the abattis as if on the summit of towers, they sent as if from engines a shower of arrows poisoned by the juices of herbs, so that sure death followed even superficial wounds inflicted in places that were not mortal. Later the army was surrounded by the enemy in greater number, and it eagerly rushed into the open places which the Franks had left unoccupied. And the horsemen were the first to plunge into the morasses, and the bodies of men and animals fell indiscriminately together, and they were overwhelmed by their own confusion. The foot soldiers also who had escaped the hoofs of the horses were impeded by the mud, and extricated themselves with difficulty, and hid again in panic in the woods from which they had struggled a little before. And so the ranks were thrown into disorder and the legions cut in pieces. Heraclius, tribune of the Jovinians, and nearly all the officers were slain, when night and the lurking places of the woods offered a safe escape to a few." This he narrated in the third book of his History.
And in the fourth book, when he tells of the killing of Victor son of Maximus, the tyrant, he says: "At that time Carietto and Sirus who had been appointed in place of Nanninus, were absent in the province of Germany with the army opposed to the Franks".
But the Saxon material is described in Ammianus
5 1 The Saxons in Gaul, after a truce had been made, were ambushed by the Romans. Valentinian, under promise of joining forces with them, roused the Burgundians to invade Alamannia, but they, after being betrayed and deceived, killed all their prisoners and returned home.
1 In the third consulship of the two Augusti a horde of Saxons134 broke out, and after overcoming the dangers of the Ocean advanced at rapid pace towards the Roman frontier,135 having often been glutted with the slaughter of our people. The storm of this first inroad was met by Nannenus, the general in charge of those regions, a leader approved by long experience in wars. 2 But meeting then with a people resolved136 to fight to the death, after p163 he had lost some of his men and had himself been wounded, he perceived that he would be unequal to frequent contests with them. Accordingly, having reported to the emperor what ought to be done, he managed that Severus, commander of the infantry,137 should come to help him in his difficult situation. 3 When he, bringing forces adequate for the purpose, had reached the spot and the troops had been drawn up in divisions, he so terrified and confused the arrogant barbarians before the struggle began, that they did not oppose him in strife, but, dazzled by the gleam of the standards and eagles, begged for pardon and peace. 4 And after a long and varied discussion, since it seemed to be in the interest of the state, a truce was agreed upon, and in accordance with the conditions that were proposed the Saxons gave us as hostages many young men fit for military service, and then were allowed to depart and return without hindrance to the place from which they had come. 5 When they thought themselves now free from all fear and were preparing to return, foot-soldiers were secretly sent and laid an ambuscade in a secluded valley, from which they could attack the Saxons with slight trouble as they passed by. But the result was far otherwise than was hoped. 6 For, excited by the sound of the approaching Saxons, some of our men rushed out before the proper time; on their sudden appearance the savages raised terrible howls, and while the Romans were hastening to steady themselves, they were put to flight. Presently, however, they halted and massed themselves together, and as their dangerous plight gave them strength (though somewhat impaired), they p165 were forced to fight; but after suffering great losses they were routed and would have perished to a man, had not a troop of mail-clad horsemen, which had been similarly stationed on another side, near a byway, to cause danger to the savages as they passed by, been aroused by their cries of terror, and quickly come to their aid. 7 Then the contest became hotter and Romans with fortified courage pressed upon the Saxons from all sides, surrounded them, and slew them with their drawn swords; not one of them could again return to his native home, not a single one was allowed to survive the slaughter of his comrades. And although some just judge will condemn this act as treacherous and hateful, yet on careful consideration of the matter he will not think it improper that a destructive band of brigands was destroyed when the opportunity was at last offered.
While I thought this was all fascinating - a man who served a Victor fighting Saxons - it was not until I read a scholarly commentary on Nannienus that alarm bells began going off. The following selection is from
For a good outline of Nannienus' career, here is the entry from The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire: Volume 1, AD 260-395, A. H. M. Jones, Arnold Hugh Martin Martin, J. R. Martindale, J. Morris, John Morris, Cambridge University Press, 1971 (courtesy Robert Vermaat):
Three things jump out at us. First, Nannienus was a magister militum. But, more importantly, it is believed he was comes tractus Armoricani or, less probably, comes litoris Saxonici or Brittanniarum. It will be recalled that according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Uther Pendragon hailed from Brittany/Armorica. Finally, he was terrifying - a characteristic that matches the name Uther (the 'terrible, fearful, dreadful'). The Saxons are dazzled by the gleam of the standards, which most assuredly had dracos among them.
In summary, then, we have a magister militum ( = Pen dragon?) from Brittany who not only serves under Victor, but also won a notable victory over invading Saxons. A man who, like Uther, induced terror in his enemies and whose standards produced a paralyzing effect.
If this man is Uther, alas, he cannot be Arthur's father. His dates are simply too early. Instead, he would be a substitute father for a hero whose real paternity was either unknown or which had become lost in the prevailing tradition. By making Nanniensus and Ambrosius (or the conflated Ambrosii) brothers of Constans, son of Constantine III, a conscious attempt to conjure a "corrected" chronology may be evident. And, needless to say, a direct line of descent from a Roman emperor is to be preferred over that stemming from a mere general.
What it all comes down to is this: I'm convinced that Arthur belongs in the Irthing Valley, and that the most likely birthplace for him is the Banna Roman fort, where for centuries the Dacians were stationed. The Dacians are notorious for their use of the draco. Thus, if we opt to interpret Uther's epithet as a reference to this religio-military standard, or perhaps to the late Roman rank of magister draconum, we can safely place this man at Banna. However, if the dragon of Pendragon is merely a typical Welsh metaphor for a warrior, then we lose our connection to Banna and are free to look elsewhere for Uther - even in the wrong time period.
I suppose it depends on how much we are willing to rely on the ever-unreliable Geoffrey of Monmouth. Does his story about the draco standard of Uther being patterned after a comet derive from actual tradition or did he simply make it up? I have elsewhere written about the comet of 442 A.D. (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/04/uther-pendragons-star-was-draco.html) and its possible connection with Uther and Arthur. This comet appeared at exactly the time we might suppose Uther to have come into power. Its origin in Ursa Major, the Great Bear, allowed for a cosmological link to Arthur, whose name was from very early on linked with Welsh arth, 'bear.'
It is not at all impossible that in an effort to legitimize his rule, Uther wisely decided to base it upon a claimed celestial sanction or mandate. If he were descended from Dacians at Banna, and the members of that garrison already identified their draco with meteors or comets, it would have been an easy matter for him to have proclaimed that his own personal draco specifically stood for the comet of 442.
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