Tuesday, April 14, 2026
Tuesday, March 17, 2026
MY READERS' PREFERENCE: AS EVERYTHING IS GUESSWORK ANYWAY, WHY NOT GO WITH ARTHUR SON OF SAWYL?
Ribchester Parade Helmet
My regular readers have urged me, almost uniformly, to adopt the Sawyl Benisel of Ribchester = Uther Pendragon theory. I've thought about this for quite awhile, yet am still not sure how I feel about.
My problem with this particular Arthurian reconstruction is nicely summarized in a recent blog piece:
Basically, there are a couple good alternative purely Welsh etymologies for the personal name Eliwlad that cast some doubt on my deriving that name from a loan-translation via the Irish. Secondly, we are left wondering why it was thought necessary to substitute Uther Pendragon, a presumed poetic metaphor, for the name + epithet Sawyl Benisel. Finally, although Sawyl is the best available emendation for kawyl of the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN, it is absolutely possible the name occurs there merely as a poetic metaphor and that a later storyteller chose to fancifully associate Sawyl Benisel and his son Madog Ailithir with Uther.
None of those problems are in and of themselves insurmountable. But, if we accept Uther as Sawyl Benisel (for no other reason than that we can!), we still have to grapple with a sub-Roman Arthur who originates at Ribchester fighting battles that look suspiciously like Roman military engagements.
The Arthurian Battles
However, there is a sort of work-around to this problem. The HISTORIA BRITTONUM tells us that Arthur was fighting against the English along the the kings of the Britains. This phrase has been subject to various interpretations.
The most obvious - given that Arthur was not a king (although he might well have been a royal son who did not outlive his father and hence did not succeed to the throne) - has him serving as a popular and successful war-leader over a force composed of warriors drawn from allied tribes/kingdoms. We might assume in this scenario that Sawyl's kingdom was at the time the most powerful or at least influential in the Northern region.
Support for this view can be found in Alex Woolf's proposition that Bede's "Caedualla rex Brettonum" was Sawyl's grandson Cadwallon Lyw:
A variation on this theme would be to see Arthur as a sort of mercenary captain employed by various kingdoms on the front line during the war against the English.
A third option would be to recognize Arthur as a Dark Age attempt to preserve in some form the office of Dux Britannarium, although such a man, one would think, should belong to York. It is true that the Ribchester Roman fort enjoyed a close relationship with York.
I think we can dispense with the Dux Brit. idea pretty quickly. The late Roman period governor of Northern Britain did not fight its enemies with client British kingdoms. The Roman army fought on its own and did not employ native troops in its campaigns.
I've discussed this possibility with Dr. Roger Tomlin and he assures me the description given of Arthur in the HB does not accord well with role and function of the Dux Brit.
A mercenary Arthur has its appeal, I suppose, but necessitates that two conditions held true. First, that the northern British kingdoms found themselves in need of mercenaries. And, second, that a nobly born son of one of those kingdoms would have taken on the mantle of a mercenary captain. I'm not sure either condition1 can be justified.
In my mind, we could have a military leader of a kingdom like that of Sawyl's that held a preeminent position among the Northern tribes. He may well have led an army comprised of what had once been the Brigantian Confederacy and affiliated tribes (like his own Segantii), as well as the Votadini (Gododdin and Manau Gododdin). While I once had great difficulty with the battles on the edge of Manau Gododdin and farther north (as these seemed only credible against a non-Saxon enemy and belonged better with either L. Artorius Castus or Arthur of Dalriada), there is really no reason to deny them to a Segantii general leading allied British troops at or just north of the Antonine Wall. This is especially so as in the next generation we find a Gododdin army coming all the way down to Catterick to fight the English. And a group of allied British kings that included Urien of Rheged, Rhydderch of Strathclyde and Morgan of the Tyne Valley were fighting the same enemy together. Urien was betrayed by Morgan near Lindisfarne.
A huge plus in favor of an Arthur son of Sawyl is the proximity to Ribchester of an excellent Badon candidate, viz. Buxton. And there is nothing wrong with a death at Camlan. We might compare this with the death of Peredur and Gwrci, sons of Eliffer of York, at Carrawburgh in the Wall.
We might compare an Arthur at Ribchester with another theory, i.e. the one that places him at Stanwix, the Uxellodunum Roman fort near the western end of Hadrian's Wall. Although the place was called Arthur's fort in the 18th century, and it was garrisoned by the largest cavalry force in all Britain, we have no genealogical trace putting him there. Ribchester was garrisoned by Sarmatian cavalry.
I've hypothesized a connection between the Ala Petriana at Stanwix and Petr of horse-loving Dyfed, and a similar association between the Petriana and Alclud/Petra Cloithe and the stone Arthur son of Bicoir used to slay the Irish prince Mongan. I've pointed out the robust equine properties of Dalriada as well.
Sure, Petrianis (a nickname for Uxellodunum) is beautifully situated geographically. It is close to Aballava/Avalona/"Avalon" with its Dea Latis or Lake Goddess, a possible prototypical Grail Castle (Drumburgh/Concavata) and to Camboglanna/Camlan.
BUT... once again, there is no Arthurian genealogical link to Petrianis.
The only extant non-Galfridian geneaology for the famous Arthur seems to link our hero with Sawyl Benisel of the North. Our only alternative is to accept Uther Pendragon as a figure conjured from the "mil uathmar... chend" of the Irish COMPERT MONGAN. And if we have no real father for Arthur, then we're unable to place the latter anywhere. Our failure to be able to do that, in turn, adds weight to the theory that there may not have been an original sub-Roman Arthur.
While there is no evidence the Sarmatians had their own ethnic draco standard (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/02/there-is-absolutely-no-evidence-for.html?m=1), the fact that the Alans and Dacians did would favor the presence of a similar totem among the Iazyges in Britain. If this supposition is provisionally accepted, it may, in fact, be the case that Sawyl as a great war-leader was referred to as the Terrible Chief-dragon.
CONCLUSION:
While I suppose it is possible that the Arthurian battles could belong to a son of Sawyl Benisel, the easier and more plausible explanation still remains that the HB list (minus Badon) represents the martial activity of L. Artorius Castus.
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
THE FINAL FOUR MILITARY RANKS OF L. ARTORIUS CASTUS IN THE CONTEXT OF ROMAN HISTORY
Highlighted Text of Inscription
[with ARM...S restored as per my proposed reading of arm(atas) gentes]:
leg(ionis) V Ma/c(edonicae) item p(rimus) p(ilus) eiusdem [leg(ionis)] praeposito / classis Misenatium [pr]aef{f}(ectus) leg(ionis) VI / victricis duci legg(ionum) [triu]m Britan(n)ic{i}/{mi}arum adversus arm[gente]s
In the context of my proposed new reading for the L. Artorius Castus memorial stone, it occurred to me that I needed to attempt to come up with a reasonable reconstruction of the most relevant portion of Castus' military career as that might fit into recorded historial events.
We may start with his service with the V Macedonica:
"In 193, the governor of Pannonia Superior, Lucius Septimius Severus marched on Rome to expel Didius Julianus, who had become emperor after the respected old Publius Helvius Pertinax had been lynched by his soldiers. The governor of Dacia Porolissensis was his brother Geta, and V Macedonica immediately sided with the new ruler, whose reign was to last until 211. A mixed subunit of V Macedonica and XIII Gemina accompanied Severus to Rome, during his war against his rival Pescennius Niger, and against the Parthians. It would be interesting to know the attitude of the soldiers towards the next civil war, which Severus fought against Clodius Albinus, a former officer of V Macedonica."
We might suggest, then, that while he was with the Macedonian legion he served under the future emperor Severus when the latter marched to Rome.
What about Castus' following stint as temporary commander of the Misenum fleet?
"After his victory over Iulianus, Septimius Severus treated the
Italian fleets in more kindly fashion than the old praetorian
guards, for he needed their support in his campaign against an-
other claimant, Pescennius Niger. In July of 193 Severus started
east to aid his generals who were holding Pescennius at the Helles-
pont; while he moved by land, the Italian fleets transported part
of the army to Dyrrachium and then proceeded to the Aegean.
They probably arrived at the Hellespont after Pescennius had
fallen back into Asia Minor, but may have aided the crossing in
turn of the Severan generals. Some portion of the navy perhaps
made a demonstration toward Egypt, for this province had come
over to Severus before the final battle of Issus gave him definitive
victory in the East.
While Septimius returned to the West to crush his last op-
ponent, Clodius Albinus, in Gaul,86 the greater part of the Italian
fleets remained in the East to aid in the siege of Byzantium, which
had declared for Niger and held out after his suicide. The rapid
current of the Bosporus prevented a fully effective blockade of
the city, but its supplies grew steadily less, and the war fleet com-
pletely annihilated a last desperate plundering sortie of the Byzan-
tines by sea. With the fall of the besieged town in the winter of
195-196 the fleets returned to their Italian ports. Tiberius Clau-
dius Subatianus Proculus, subpraefect of the Misene fleet, ren-
dered such great service in the naval operations that Septimius
Severus advanced him to the Senate by the urban quaestorship
and promoted him steadily thereafter; the navarchs and trierarchs
of the Misene fleet set up a dedication to Caracallus, both to com-
memorate the victory and possibly to indicate their gratitude for
Septimius’ leniency in 193."
We can, therefore, have him commanding a fleet that is transporting Severus' forces east to fight Pescennius Niger. I asked about the actual nature of the praepositus rank, just to make sure this made sense.
<Am I correct in assuming the praepositus rank of Castus over tge Misenum fleet was an ad hoc command similar to his later dux? And that this praepositus position would have been held by Castus for some specific fleet mission or operation? It wasn't just a command position he would have held for a particular pre-determined period of time (i.e. X number of years before advancing to his next post)? I find a lot of praefecti for the fleet, but not praepositi.>
"Yes, that's right. The fleet would be commanded by a praefectus, a praepositus being an ad hoc commander until the next praefectus was appointed. Look at Aelius Marcianus (Dessau, ILS 2738), who is variously prefect and praepositus of different units, then praepositus of the Syrian fleet followed by prefect of the Moesian fleet."
- Dr. Roger Tomlin
At this point it becomes allowable to look at Severus' defeat of the next big imperial contender, Albinus, governor of Britain. I approached another noted expert on this possible action for Castus.
<If Castus is Severan, as I've proposed (with your help on the stone), his being with the V Macedonica, then the Misenum fleet as interim commander (praepositus) before becoming the camp prefect of the Sixth in Britain seems to fit nicely with units of the Macedonian legion going to Rome with Severus to get rid of Didius Julianus, then with the fleet going east under Severus to deal with Pescennius Niger. Following the defeat of Albinus, the British army's officers would need replacing and Castus might well have been tapped for the Sixth Legion's prf c. If we allow a decade in that post under Severus, he might then have commanded legionary detachments in the Severan invasion of Northern Britain.
Look good to you?>
"That chronology is certainly workable, yes. Certainly nothing to prevent a decade-long tenure."
- Benet Salway
<But Brian Dobson assumes 3 years as an average tenure for a camp prefect, but on what basis I don't know:
"The rank of the praefectus castrorum seems to be third in the legionary hierarchy on the evidence of VIII 18078, where the first named appears to be the tribunus laticlavius (cf. AE 1898, 12) and the second the prefect of the legion (cf. VIII 2666). To supply the prefects, assuming a three-year tenure of office on average, perhaps ten of each year's supply of primipili might be required, fewer if tenure was for longer than three years and some vacancies were being filled by primipili iterum."
Your thoughts on that?>
"As these posts are open-ended appointments, there can be no hard and fast rule; hence Dobson’s calculations are based purely on the pragmatic."
- Benet Salway
After his installation as camp prefect, and during Severus' invasion of Northern Britain, Castus would have taken on his second temporary military rank, that of dux. He was put in charge of three legions (or, more likely, three legionary vexillations or his own entire Sixth Legion along with two generous detachments from the other British legions). And with that force he fought major engagements against "armed tribes".
Thus the legend of Arthur was born.
Saturday, March 7, 2026
THE ARTHURIAN BATTLES FORCE MY HAND: THE INESCAPABLE LOGIC OF L. ARTORIUS CASTUS
For me, who Arthur was always comes down to the locations of the Arthurian battles.
As I'm fairly confident I've provided solid identifications for the battle sites, the conclusion I must reach from those identifications is that Arthur = L. Artorius Castus.
This opinion is backed by those of scholars who are expert in their respective fields of study:
Of course, these battles could always be (as has been much discussed before) a conflation of military engagements fought by different Arthurs, including Castus. Two potential sub-Roman Arthurs (not counting Arthur of Dalriada and Arthur of Dyfed) stand out: an Arthur at Petrianis/Arthur's Burg on Hadrian's Wall and an Arthur son of Sawyl at Ribchester. Only the son of Sawyl exhibits a possible genealogical trace (https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/02/eliwlad-flies-again-or-new-solution-to.html?m=1).
Both Ribchester and Petrianis (modern Stanwix) were garrisoned by major cavalry units, and so a battle-leader from either place may have endeared himself to the horse-loving tribes of Dalriada and Dyfed. Sawyl of Ribchester had married an Irish princess and such a connection may tie in with the Irish-descended dynasties of the Welsh and Scottish kingdoms.
It is also, true, however, that Castus was an eques, a knight. Had this fact been preserved in the tradition, then he, too, would have appeared attractive to those in the land of the Epidii or those who worshipped Epona.
Still, if we accept the battles as belonging to only one man, then surely we must accept L. Artorius Castus as the prototypical figure who became the Arthur of legend. Castus is also the only provable historical entity excepting the later Dalriadan and Dyfed Arthurs. And if we already have a famous Castus on our hands, justifying a second Dark Age Arthur may well be an impossible task.
Thursday, March 5, 2026
THE CREATION OF UTHER PENDRAGON: A TWO-STEP PROCESS
[The only valid genealogical trace I've managed to come up with for Uther involves my tentative identification of Arthur's father with Sawyl Benisel. See
https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/02/eliwlad-flies-again-or-new-solution-to.html?m=1. If this theory is abandoned, then the following quite possible, but wholly unsatisfactory, origin for Uther must be seriously entertained. Note that even a placement of Uther at Stanwix/Uxellodunum/Petrianis, aka "Arthuriburgum", comes with a total lack of any genealogical connection.]
Merlin, Vortigern and the Two Dragons
After a great deal of soul-searching, I'm finally having to accept what I've long feared: Uther Pendragon is a literally creation. Or, more precisely, a "rebranding" of another well-known hero who was later wrongly associated with the mil uathmar of the Irish COMPERT MONGAN.
The following selection from an old blog is a good departure point for the current confession...
<Years ago I proposed that Uther Pendragon, the 'Terrible/Horrible Chief-warrior', was merely a title for Ambrosius Aurelianus. The idea came from the later Arthurian romances, where Ambrosius disappears entirely, being replaced by 'Pendragon.'
I resisted the identification. Why? Because I did not want to admit that Uther was merely a "filler" character, conjured out of a man who was actually of the 4th century.
Here is my "evidence" for Uther as Ambrosius from a very old post:
***
Having covered the sources dealing with a supposed pre-Galfridian Uther, we must now treat of the epithet itself. In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account of the comet that appears on the death of Aurelius Ambrosius (the Ambrosius Aurelianus of Gildas), Merlin tells Uther that the dragon star signifies himself. This is NOT in accord with the prevailing medieval view. Simply expressed, a comet heralded the death of the king – something that Geoffrey does start out saying in his account. But such a star DID NOT represent, in any way, the dead king’s successor.
Uther had nothing to do with the dragons of Dinas Emrys (a relocation of the Vespasian’s Fort at Amesbury and nearby Stonehenge; see my book “The Mysteries of Avalon”). Beginning with the account of Emrys Guletic (Ambrosius the Prince) in Nennius, it is ONLY Aurelius who has to do with the dragons. In Geoffrey’s History, Merlin is intruded and here wrongly identified with Ambrosius. Uther is placed in charge of obtaining the stones from Ireland with Merlin Ambrosius’s help, but all this is done by order by Aurelius. In the original Dinas Emrys story it was Emrys/Ambrosius who revealed the dragons under the fort and who was then given the site to rule from by Vortigern. In fact, we are told Vortigern “gave him [Emrys] the fortress, with all the kingdoms of the western part of Britain.” This is omitted, of course, when Geoffrey divides the Dinas Emrys episode from the Amesbury/Stonehenge one.
I wrote extensively on Dinas Emrys and its dragons, but one of the more important pieces is here:
There I spoke about the "dragon of Emrys" as a title for the ruler of Gwynedd. Elsewhere I had delved into the nature of the red dragon as emblematic of the draco standard (Red Dragon = purple draco of the Emperor Julian, for example; see http://www.fectio.org.uk/articles/draco.htm), the genius of the British people, cremated remains of a chieftain/warrior placed in an urn and even as a folk memory of the crossed snakes (?) standard of the Segontium/Caernarvon Roman fort garrison.
Needless to say, this was a complicated subject and there were many interweaving strands present in the tradition.
But one more point is important in the context of Uther as Ambrosius. According to Nennius (Chapter 31), Vortigern was in FEAR or DREAD (timore in the Latin text) of Ambrosius, who is called the “great king” (rex magnus) “among all the kings of the British nation”. This title is a Latin rendering for his Welsh rank of guletic. In Welsh, uthr is an adjective and has the meanings of ‘FEARFUL, DREADFUL’ (see the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru). Thus the great king who was the terror of Vortigern could have become, quite naturally, the Terrible Dragon/Pen. Uther Dragon/Pen would then merely be a doublet for Ambrosius. This possibility may gain support from the fact that the late French Vulgate refers to Ambrosius as Pendragon.
Welsh tradition associates Uther with Caer Dathal, which I've identified with Ambrosius' Dinas Emrys (see
https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/01/dinas-emrys-as-caer-dathal-late.html?m=1). Geoffrey of Monmouth has both Ambrosius and Uther buried at Stonehenge near Amesbury, an echo of the dragons in the urns at Dinas Emrys.
Ambrosius at Campus Elleti in Glamorgan points to an identification of the "Immortal One" with the god Mabon at Gileston (see
https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/11/campus-elleti-and-arelate-how-ambrosius.html?m=1). And Mabon, in the Pa Gur poem, is made into the servant of Uther of Elei/Ely near Elleti and Gileston.
Before anyone gets too excited about the notion that Uther Dragon, Arthur’s father, is actually Ambrosius Aurelianus, I would remind everyone of the fact that Ambrosius himself has been anachronistically placed in the 5th century when he actually belongs in the 4th. He is the Roman governor of Gaul of this name. While a contemporary of the Constans who went to Britain to deal with troubles there in 343 (a Constans confused with Constans II, who is the Constans of Geoffrey's account), it is unlikely he ever set foot in Britain. His name was wrongly attached to Amesbury by Stonehenge, and Gaulish place-names associated with Ambrosius and his son. St. Ambrose (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-ghost-ambrosius-or-why-arthurs.html and https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/05/why-ambrosius-aurelianus-was-put-in.html) may have been fancifully related to ones in Britain.>
Once Uther Pendragon was substituted fo Ambrosius, Geoffrey of Monmouth or his source could get to work linking this poetic name/epithet with the mil uathmar brought forward (chend; cf. W. pen) by the English in the Degsastan battle in the COMPERT MONGAN (https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2017/10/degsastan-and-origin-of-mil-uathmarfer.html).
CONCLUSION:
I no longer feel compelled to continue "chasing the dragon's tail" - something I have done with Uther for decades.
What could have happened is that the father of the Arthur of the HB and AC wasn't known. And so it became necessary to give him one. Ambrosius, made famous by Gildas and Welsh folklore, fit the bill perfectly. Not only because of his legendary status, but because he had been chronologically shifted to the 5th century. His being mentioned in the context of the Badon battle didn't hurt, either.
In my opinion, therefore, if we can't settle on Uther as Sawyl Benisel (the only possible actual genealogical link to Arthur), then Uther Pendragon may well be Ambrosius. And, needless to say, the latter was not Arthur's father.
Sunday, March 1, 2026
HOW L. ARTORIUS CASTUS WAS TIME-TRAVELLED TO THE DARK AGES
St. Germanus of Auxerre
I once pitched a couple of ideas here on my blog that I initially thought were promising. They turned out later not to be, but only because I was hoping they would point towards a historical Arthur - a hero who was closely connected to Cerdic of Wessex/Ceredig son of Cunedda. I eventually abandoned this avenue of research.
Simply put, I had gone with the oft-expressed opinion that the Elesa of the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE was to be identified with the Elafius of the Life of St. Germanus of Auxerre. From there I proposed that Elafius' crippled son might be a reference to Arthur (whose name had been subjected to a folk etymology). There was no real problem with this theory, especially as I had obtained decent scholarly support for it.
Much later, while exploring L. Artorius Castus as a possible Arthurian prototype, I suggested that personages appearing in Germanus' Vita may have aided in the folk transferrence of Castus from the 3rd century to the 5th/6th. But for some reason I'd forgotten all about the crippled boy.
Well, suppose that instead of trying to see Elafius' son as an Isidore-like reference to a sub-Roman Arthur, we allow for the possibility that an Artorius who fought under Septimius Severus and Lupus the governor of Britain and Caracalla Germanicus was associated in tradition with the crippled boy (who actually had nothing to do with an Arthur!) in the time of Severus and Lupus and St. Germanus?
If this did occur, then we might have here at least one significant vehicle by which Castus was temporally shifted from the Roman period to the Dark Ages.
According to the HISTORIA BRITTONUM, Arthur's floruit perfectly matches that of the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE'S floruit for Cerdic. Thus Arthur is inserted as a foil to the founder if Wessex.
Cerdic first appears in 495, and bows out in 534. Arthur supposedly wins at Badon in 516 (or thereabouts) and dies in 537.
Although Germanus' second visit to Britain is sometimes believed to be a false narrative, it it occurred or was believed to have occurred, this would have happened around the middle of the 5th century. A young boy at this time, wrongly linked to the name Artorius, might well as an adult have been projected into the 6th century. Sure, he would have been very old at Camlan, but given the leniency of heroic legend in such matters we might well imagine Castus becoming Arthur in this fashion.
Friday, February 20, 2026
WHY A DARK AGE ARTHUR MAKES MORE SENSE THAN A ROMAN ONE (FINAL COMPARISON OF TWO RIVAL THEORIES)
The word eques is like English 'knight', a social rank originally applied to men rich enough to have a horse and serve as cavalry. The prefect of a legion ranked as an eques, i.e. 'equestrian', but didn't necessarily ride a horse, although he may well have done so.
I think you will find that eques is mostly used of (cavalry) horsemen. If you need to make your own or someone's else's equestrian status explicit – and 'equestrian' officers do not need to – you use the terms equo publico or uir egregius. Castus had no need to specify his social status. It was implicit in his various posts.
- Roger Tomlin
eques (sing.), equites (pl.): (i) a member of the equestrian centuries; (ii) a member
of the equestrian order; (iii) a cavalryman.
eques Romanus (sing.); equites Romani (pl.): a member of the Roman equestrian
order.
eques equo publico (sing.), equites equo publico (pl.): equestrians with the public
horse, members of the equestrian centuries.
equites equo suo: equestrians serving on their own horses; they possessed the
equestrian census, but not the public horse.
equus publicus: the ‘public horse’, granted by the Roman state in the form of
money to buy and maintain a horse.
ordo equester: the equestrian order.
- A History of the Roman Equestrian Order
Caillan Davenport
After narrowing down my search for a decent historical Arthur candidate to just two candidates (see
https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2026/02/and-then-there-were-three-who-will-be.html), I quite naturally evolved to a logical approach to the problem.
What do I mean by this?
Well, there are chiefly three questions that need to be asked - and, if possible, answered - at this juncture in the last phase of my research.
1) Do we need a Dark Age Arthur at Petrianis of the 1,000 horse Ala Petriana when L. Artorius Castus was himself an eques/knight?
and
2) Do we need a Dark Age Arthur period, if the name itself derives from Castus? [Obviously, the Arthur name could have been inherited in Northern Britain from another source, but if I'm right about Castus leading legionary forces inside Britain in some noteworthy fashion and having thereby acquired legendary/mythical status among Britons in the sub-Roman period, then it is probable the Arthur name did originate with the Roman dux.]
3) Badon is lost to Arthurian history if we subscribe to Castus as our hero. And while Camlan can easily be granted to Castus as a battle site, the latter most certainly did not perish there. The veracity of the Camlan battle as it is found listed in the ANNALES CAMBRIAE is suspect, in any case, as I've been able to demonstrate that Medrawd is actually a misplaced reference to St. Medard (see
To tackle these questions as honestly as I can, one by one...
For an Arthur to have been special enough to have caught the attention of the Horse-people (Epidii) of Kintyre and the Epona (Rhiannon) worshipping kingdom of Dyfed I have proposed that he must have had pronounced equine associations himself. There is no problem with that being the case with a Dark Age Arthur who claimed descent from the Ala Petriana. But can it realistically be said that Castus' eques/knight status was sufficient to engender this kind of enthusiasm among the royal families of Dalriada and Dyfed?
Almost certainly not. The following extract is from Caillan Davenport's A History of the Roman Equestrian Order (p. 606):
"Although the ordo equester and the dignitas equestris continued to exist
until at least the mid-fifth century AD, equestrian status lost its aristocratic
significance. In his speech of thanks to Gratian for his consulship in AD 379,
the emperor’s former tutor Ausonius boasted that he had no need to
campaign or flatter the people to earn the honour of the consulship, as his
Republican predecessors would have had to do. He proclaimed:
The Roman people, the Campus Martius, the equestrian order, the rostra, the
voting pens, the senate, and the curia – it is Gratian himself who is all these things
for me.
The influence and prestige of the ordo equester – and its role as
a constituent body in the res publica – was thus expressly positioned by
Ausonius as a relic of a bygone age. The ordo equester ceased to be
celebrated as a constituent part of the res publica. When Sidonius
Apollinaris delivered a panegyric for the emperor Majorian in AD 458 he
proclaimed that ‘every order gave kingship to you in turn – the plebs, the
senate, and the soldiery’ (ordine vobis | ordo omnis regnum dederat, plebs,
curia, miles). The equites Romani who lived in the late Roman empire
still earned the title through imperial benefaction. They still had privileges
that surpassed ordinary men, but this was far below what members of
their ordo had possessed in the days of Cicero, Augustus, or Marcus
Aurelius. Now one had to enter imperial service and become a senator,
a vir clarissimus, to earn the rewards that had once been granted to
equestrians. The domestication of status in the monarchical res publica
had made elites dependent on the emperor for privileges, honours
and status, all of which he could refashion at his will."
To this we should add the fact that Arthur in the earliest sources is never called an eques. He is, instead, simply referred to as a miles, "soldier." Had his eques status been important to the kings of Dyfed and Dalriada, we might expect him to have been presented as a knight.
As for Question No. 2 above, there is only really one thing for me to say here. That is, simply put, if the name Arthur can be traced back to L. Artorius Castus, then the latter must have done something truly significant while serving as dux. If we accept the usual reading of Armenia (or even default to Armorica) on his memorial stone, it is impossible to point to him as someone who would have achieved a high degree of fame within Britain. In this case, Arthur would just be a name and would not necessarily be traceable to Castus.
However, if Castus did play a major role in Septimius Severus' invasion of the North, and he did develop into a sort of folk hero by the 5th or 6th centuries, then we must admit that there is really no reason to require the existence of a sub-Roman Arthur based at Petrianis. We may allow for the name Artorius - renowned in northern British story - to have been given to princely sons by Irish conquerors/settlers in Britain merely because of the mythical connotations the name had taken on.
BUT, that rings rather hollow, precisely because of the answer I supplied to Question 1: the name Arthur must be important to the Irish kings for a reason, and that Castus had achieved a mythical status among the sub-Roman Britons seems insufficient cause. Castus wasn't British, he was Roman. And so Irish kings seeking to make themselves appear more "British" [1] would be unlikely to choose the name of an invading Roman general for their noble sons. They would instead have sought out a more recent British hero - like one who may have originated from Petrianis.
We might, at least for the Dalriadans, propose that Artorius as an enemy of the Britons of the North was identified with by the Irish infiltrating northern British lands. But this hardly works for Dyfed in the SW of Wales, where a northern Castus could hardly have been in any way important.
Question No. 3 is the easiest one to answer, in a sense. Given Gildas's chronology for Badon, only a Dark Age Arthur could have fought there. It is true that Welsh tradition (which I have shown in several blog aricles) seems to favor the Liddington Badbury as the site of Badon. However, strictly from a linguistic standpoint (and this is agreed upon by the top Celtic philologists), Badon is the natural British reflex of English Bathum. And for a northern sub-Roman Arthur there is a very nice Bathum at Buxton in the Peak of Derbyshire. The place is on the extreme southern fringe of what would have been Brigantes territory during the Roman period.
The intrusion of Medard as Medraut in the Camlan entry need not disqualify that entry, as we may easily have started with Arthur's death at Camlan and then had the Medard name accidentally or intentionally (for dramatic effect?) inserted. The Aballava (variant Avalana) Roman fort just to the west of Camboglanna/Castlesteads would seem to be Avalon with its own Dea Latis or "Lake Goddess." I've even made a case for Drumburgh/Concavata nearby being a prototypical Grail Castle. Thus if Camboglanna is not where Arthur died, its proximity to these other forts - not to mention its proximity to Petrianis or Arthur's Fort - seems to be just too much of a coincidence.
CONCLUSION
On the balance of things, it seems more reasonable to accept a Dark Age Arthur from Petrianis as the more immediate prototype for the legendary hero than it does to have to resort to L. Artorius Castus of the 2nd or 3rd centuries.
Of course, we must always bear in mind that given the way heroic legend works, we may have some conflation of the various Arthurs going on in our sources. In fact, I think any folklorist would tell you that if you have a famous man with a certain name, then his deeds might over long stretches of time have become muddled together with the activities of other men of the same name.
A good example: the Welsh themselves place Camlan at the Afon Gamlan in NW Wales (something else I have definitively proven). Now, we might choose to view this as a relocation of the Camboglanna Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall. Or, it is possible that because Dyfed historically was often at war with its Welsh neighbors to the north, the Arthur who perishes at the Afon Gamlan may be Arthur son of Pedr.
I would also mention the confused tradition concerning the death of Arthur son of Aedan (or Conaing). One Irish source has him dying in a battle with the Miathi (the Roman period Maeatae), while another has him dying in Circinn (Strathmore; see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-discovery-of-ancient-pictish.html). I have discussed the Maeatae in the context of L. Artorius Castus' possibly participation in the Severan invasion of North Britain (and shown that Arthur's Bassas River battle occurs between the two Miathi forts, while the shore of the Tribruit is the Caracallan trajectus across the Forth at Queensferry). The Caledonian Wood battle also looks remarkably like a Roman battle - or, if we must, a battle fought by the Dalriadan Arthur.
The validity of other Arthurian battles may also be called into question. Breguoin is thought to be a borrowing of Urien's Brewyn (= Bremenium) battle. Interestingly, a bear god named Matunus was worshipped at the Bremenium Roman fort at High Rochester. Agned, a copying error for Agued, is a descriptor found used of the Catraeth battle in the GODDODIN, a poem containing the earliest dated instance of the name Arthur. The urbs legionis is, in a northern context, the city of York, where Castus was stationed as prefect of the Sixth Legion.
We all want just one Arthur, but the one Arthur we have may well be an amalgamation of Arthurs. I think the key to finding the most important one - the one who started the whole Arthurian ball rolling, so to speak - is to find the man the kingdoms of Dalriada and Dyfed named their royal sons after. And I still feel that such a man should be sought in a time and place that has a lot to do with horses.
A 5th-6th century Petrianis, for example.
[1]
If the Arthur name was taken by the Irish of Dalriada and Dyfed for no other reason than it had belonged to a famous British war-leader and so adopting it was seen as emphasizing their own desire to be become more British, then we might also still consider an Arthur at Birdoswald. I held to that idea for some time. I abandoned the theory only because I was no longer willing to associate Uther Pendragon with the Dacian draco at Birdoswald. In a future blog, I will take one last look at Uther and the Aelian dragon on Hadrian's Wall.
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