IF ARTHUR = CASTUS, HOW DO WE EXPLAIN THE LATER IRISH ARTHURS?

My readers will be familiar with my past attempts to account for why the Dark Age Arthurs subsequent to the presumed earlier and more famous British war-leader all belonged to Irish-founded dynasties in Britain.

To date, I've not been able to satisfactorily resolve this problem.

But what happens if we plug in L. Artorius Castus, leader of legions against native tribes in the biggest invasion of northern Britain ever undertaken by the Romans, as that earlier, more famous war-leader?

Well, we'd have to allow for Castus having achieved a mythical status among the Britons. For the highly Romanized south of England and client kingdoms farther north, the campaigns of Septimius Severus and his son Caracalla would have been welcome, even applauded events. But for the Caledonii and Maeatae confederations and (if some scholars are right, that of the Brigantes), Castus would have been the villain of the story.

At this point we need to remind ourselves that the Irish Deisi who invaded and settled Dyfed, and the Irish Dalriada who invaded and settled Argyll, had done so at the expense of the native British tribes of those regions (the Demetae and Epidii, respectively).

Is it unreasonable to suggest that the Irish ruling families of the Deisi and the Dalriada chose Artorius as a name for their royal sons as a way of identifying themselves with the legions the great Roman dux had brought against the British tribes?

The Dalriadans borrowed Old English cyning, "king", as a personal name - Conaing in the Irish. In some genealogies it is Conaing and not Aedan son of Gabran who is father to an Arthur. Needless to say, the English, like the Irish, were enemies of the British.

While in this context Arthur from Artorius makes sense, the irony of such a possibility does not escape me. For if I'm right, the Arthur of legend was not defending Britain from the Saxons. He was defending a Roman province from the subjugated Britons.

This scenario in regards to the use of the Arthur name among the Deisi and Dalriada also explains why the name was not used by the British themselves in the sub-Roman period.