Coin of the Usurper Constantine III
It is so easy to put oneself in a box when it comes to formulating Arthurian theory.
For some time now (years, actually - I'm ashamed to admit!), I've tried to decide on which terrible magister militum stood the best chance of being Uther Pendragon. There are two candidates in the tradition for the latter. In the first, as represented best by the Galfridian material, Uther Pendragon is the MM/MVM Gerontius of the early 5th century. A Welsh tradition recorded in the PA GUR seems pretty specifically to identify Uther with Illtud, who is also a terrible soldier and a magister militum.
Neither man works. The PA GUR equation almost certaintly was done simply because someone recognized an apparent or desired identification of Uther and Illtud. Otherwise, the saint's life does not permit us to do anything with him that would suggest he actually was Uther. Chronologically, he is better than our other alternative, Gerontius.
The latter is attractive because we can propose that the Uther Pendragon descriptor/rank that was originally applied to Gerontius came to be applied, either intentionally or accidentally, to a later Gereint. We have some evidence that such a Gereint existed at the right time to be Arthur's father.
What is not to like about a Gereint whose forts are situated in the extremity of the Cornish peninsula?
Well, for starters, I'm quite sure the Arthurian battles belong in the North. Decades of research has confirmed this, and I still offer the only good identifications for these battle-sites based on the best and more current place-name and language research. If we opt for a Cornish Arthur who ends up fighting up and down Dere Street in the North, we would have to assume he was merely a mercenary being employed by rulers in that region. Not an impossibility, but rather unlikely.
In addition, we can easily account for the preservation of the name Artorius in the North, and in exactly the area where the battles are situated. We cannot do so with an Arthur born in Cornwall.
So, this would seem to create an insoluable dilemma for us. But does it, really?
To begin with, I think we can settle on Uther as Gerontius. As I wrote once:
I have solved the Uther riddle once and for all.
My final clue came in the form of one of those nagging bits of place-name studies' results from Cornwall. I had noticed a couple of Gorlois names attached to Gereint sites. This made sense not within the body of any extant tradition, but only in my proposed identification of Uther Pendragon/gorlassar as the terrible MM/MVM Gerontius of the early 5th century. This famous, though ill-fated British general's military rank, so I had suggested, might have been assigned to a later Gereint, Arthur's actual father.
The whole idea came from the pseudo-history of Geoffrey of Monmouth. In that work, Vortigern the "superbus tyrannus" kills Constans, who was initially a monk. There's good reason for thinking that Vortigern was associated with Magnus Maximus "the tyrant". Hence the story of Vortigern and Ambrosius at Eryri - a reflection of Maximus and St. Ambrose at Aquileia.
This represents a strange conflation/confusion of history. For Constans I, who had actually gone to Britain, was killed by one Magnentius (a name based on the same root as Magnus). Magnentius is killed by a Constantius.
Constans II, the historical monk, is killed by Gerontius the magister militum and magister utriusque militiae. Gerontius is killed by another Constantius.
The vytheint elei Kysteint is Welsh for Constantius.
It has occurred to me that the problem has to do with the origin point of Gerontius. I had become so fixated on the Cornish Gereints to the point where I neglected to consider that Gerontius probably came from Northern Britain.
Anthony Birley had written the following about Constantine III:
"Sozomen gives no real explanation for the British soldiers’ action, except to
comment on Constantine, that they chose him, ‘thinking that as he had this
name, he would master the imperial power firmly [beba≤wß=constanter], since
it was for a reason such as this that they appear to have chosen the others for
usurpation as well’. The magic of the name of Constantine, in Britain above
all, needs no documentation. Orosius has a similar version: Constantine was
chosen ‘solely on account of the hope in his name’. Sozomen’s remark that
this applied to the others as well probably just means that the soldiers had
thought that Marcus and Gratian too ‘would master the imperial power
firmly’.¹³² Constantine’s appeal to the memory of Constantine the Great, who
had been proclaimed emperor in Britain almost exactly a century earlier, is
made even more obvious by his assumption of the names Flavius Claudius.
Further, his sons were called Constans, made Caesar in 408 and Augustus in
409 or 410, and Julian, who received the title nobilissimus.¹³³"
To address this problem, I approached Professor Roger Tomlin with the following query:
"Roger,
Your opinion on this idea...
We all know Constantius Chlorus died at York, and Constantine the Great was declared emperor there.
So, Constantine III was declared emperor in Britain in 407, and actually named sons after close relative of Constantine the Great.
Is it reasonable, do you suppose, to assume that continuing with this line of propagandist presentation that the usurper in 407 would have had himself declared by the troops at York?"
And, furthermore, is it reasonable to assume Gerontius was drawn from the same region?"
His reply:
"I don't see that York would be chosen deliberately for the magic of its association with Constantine (if remembered!), but nonetheless it is likely to be where Constantine III was proclaimed, since it was capital of the northern province (Britannia Inferior and its successor(s)) and also a major military base, if not the military base. His army was probably based there, even if it was operating elsewhere at the time.
"I don't see that York would be chosen deliberately for the magic of its association with Constantine (if remembered!), but nonetheless it is likely to be where Constantine III was proclaimed, since it was capital of the northern province (Britannia Inferior and its successor(s)) and also a major military base, if not the military base. His army was probably based there, even if it was operating elsewhere at the time.
As for Gerontius, yes, York is quite credible."
Needless to say, this was a shocker to me. It shouldn't have been, but it was. Any identification of Gerontius with a later Cornish namesake would be mere spurious tradition.
What this all means, of course, is that if we allow for Uther Pendragon (as depicted in the Galfridian tradition) to be Gerontius, while we can't float the latter as Arthur's father due to the chronology, we can allow for either the actual descent of Arthur from this Gerontius or a fanciful genealogy utilizing Gerontius being applied to Arthur's ancestry for the sake of added legitimacy. There is nothing new about royal pedigrees being manipulated in our early British and Welsh sources. We have evidence for such aplenty.
More importantly, the best place for the preservation of the Artorius name is York (or Carvoran and environs on Hadrian's Wall, where there was a Dalmatian garrison in the late Roman period). L. Artorius Castus would have been fairly famous in certain circles. A prefect of the Sixth at York who led legionary detachments to Armenia, one of the largest successful campaigns ever embarked on by Rome, who eventually became the procurator of the emergency-founded province of Liburnia with the right of the sword. He may have been born in Dalmatia, but seems to have had other Dalmatian connections, in any case. There were Artorii in Salona, Dalmatia, and we have a woman from Salona being buried at Carvoran. As I've detailed before, there was also a Dalmatian unit in the late period at or hard by York.
We can, then, suggest the following plausible portrait for an Arthur of the North: a man born of the line of Gerontius (or who as assigned to that line for propgandist purposes) at York or on the Wall whose name could be traced back through a couple of centuries to Castus.
What I love about this idea, obviously, is that it allows us to retain a solid interpretation of tradition regarding Uther without sacrificing the Northern battles of Arthur.
When I have the time I will be incorporating this "theory" into my book THE BATTLE-LEADER OF THE NORTH and offering that volume in republished form.
