ON FALLEN HEROES (NO, NOT WHAT YOU'RE THINKING)

In the course of some three decades, I've gone from seeing Arthur as a great high medieval king defending Britain from all manner of evils to accepting as the prototypical figure a Roman army officer who commanded legions during Emperor Severus's genocidal invasion of northern Britain.

How did this devolution happen?

Well, I see chiefly three principles at work here. 

One, I've grown considerably older. And that means youthful idealism has been replaced by seasoned realism.

Second, I successfully made the shift in my researches and theorizing from utilizing, accepting and adapting romantic or purely legendary sources to severely limiting myself to what a true historical treatment of the Arthur story demanded.

And, third, I met Dr. Linda A. Malcor.

This last is the most important formative influence on me. Although I disagreed with Linda from the start - sometimes rancorously and, to my great embarrassment, publicly - she not only "got me to thinking" about L. Artorius Castus as a possible Arthurian candidate, but invited me to an Arthurian symposium in Croatia in 2019. An event paid for by the Croatian sponsors of the event.

Because she did that for me, and arranged to have me present a paper at the said conference, I was able to participate in an exploration of the places where Castus lived and was buried. In what may have been the most profound experience of my life, I was able to examine and TOUCH the Castus' memorial stone.

Unfortunately, Linda and I held such strongly polarized opinions on Arthur and Castus that we eventually fell out. Our methodologies are radically different and we approach the subject from the perspective of different disciplines. I had already alienated myself from the majority of the so-called "Arthurian Community", eschewing those folks I considered Fringe or New Age/Neopagan for more traditional, "respectable" academic contacts.

But I will never forget Croatia, and I will never be able to express enough the gratitude I feel towards Linda for making the trip there possible for me.

More importantly, she successfully planted in my mind the notion - which I long fought against - that Castus may, indeed, have been the original King Arthur.

On and off, ever since the 2019 Croatian symposium, I flirted with the idea that the Castus inscription's lacuna ARM[...]S might indicate this prefect of the Sixth Legion had actually led legionary troops within Britain itself. Linda and her colleagues had proposed ARMATOS, and that Castus had been a governor missing from the record. I (and all the other scholars I had consulted) could not accept either claim. 

Might there be an alternative reading that was valid in terms of epigraphic use and historical probability?

My answer was ARM.GENTES or "armed tribes." When combined with several early strands of the Arthurian tradition (such as the presence in that tradition of the Maeatae and Caledonii), I suggested Castus had taken part in the Severan expeditions in north Britain. Leading academics thought the idea quite credible.

When I reached this conclusion (a painful one, I assure you, and one I resisted mightily), questions that had vexed me to no end (like the "Irish Arthur Problem") resolved themselves quite simply and with little effort.

And so I found myself light years from the chivalrous hero of my boyhood and early adulthood. Instead, I was agreeing with my arch-rival Dr. Linda A. Malcor, albeit for entirely different reasons, that Arthur was a reflection - an intentional, planted anachronism - of a man who had participated in a Roman campaign of attempted extermination  of the northern British tribes.

I find myself wishing I knew now what I didn't know in 2019. Had I been able to present my current findings in a Croatian paper, both the tourism applications for that country and my own professional trajectory might be on another track altogether. I also would have found the experience even more powerful and enriching.

Rather, I must content myself with thanking Linda for causing me to question my own beliefs and motives. For if we don't do that, there is no hope for any important breakthrough or discovery.

At some point in the future, I will put out a volume on this final theory of mine. The working title, the first half of which supposedly came from the mouth of Severus on the eve of the second invasion of northern Britain, is

"LET NOT ANYONE ESCAPE FROM SHEER DESTRUCTION": A NEW ARGUMENT FOR A ROMAN ARTHUR.