ARMATOS ARMORICA - TOMATO TOMAHTO?: NONSPECIFICITY AND THE LUCIUS ARTORIUS CASTUS MEMORIAL STONE

RIB 1322

"Missing Pieces" (Malcor, L.A., Trinchese, A., Faggiani, A., Missing Pieces: A New Reading of the Main Lucius Artorius Castus Inscription, Journal of Indo-European Studies, Vol. 47, no 3 & 4 Fall/Winter, 2019, pp. 415-437) offers a new reading of a key fragmentary word in the memorial inscription of Lucius Artorius Castus.  The ARM- of the stone has now been interpreted as the first part of the word ARMATOS, 'armed men/soldiers.'  Combined with a date for LAC falling in the latter part of the 2nd century, the authors of the paper propose that Artorius commanded parts of three British legions against unnamed adversaries within Britain itself.  This revised view on the career of LAC has generated considerable discussion.

While I have confirmed the probable dating of LAC with various top epigraphers and Roman military historians (like Roger Tomlin), the ARM- remains a problem.  Why?  Because even if we opt to discount the possibility that ARM- is for Armorica (a position previously held by Malcor), we have in armatos a nonspecificity problem. Simply put, whenever vague terms like 'armed men' (ore rebels, deserters, brigands and such) are used in inscriptions - and there are a very small number of such - the location of the said troublemakers is either stated or implied.  The majority of scholars I have consulted all dislike, to a greater or lesser degree, the ambiguity of a phrase 'adversus armatos.'

Now, I have gone over in painstaking detail the sources for the period, both primary and secondary.  We don't have much, and what we have is often contradictory (e.g. the different accounts of the death of Perennis).  What is clear is that during the reign of Commodus chaotic conditions prevailed.  Scholars like Anthony Birley (see his most recent book THE GOVERNMENT OF ROMAN BRITAIN) have done their best to weave together the various strands of the historical tradition.  Often we have nothing more than a "restored" name or two on a badly damaged stone to go by.  Any attempt to paint a comprehensive portrait of what was going on appears to be quite impossible.  We can only deductively arrive at various speculations, some more compelling than others.  But all is uncertain and one comes away from it all feeling rather unsatisfied and frustrated.  The paucity of information is, frankly, discouraging to future research.  The scholars I've corresponded with are now content to accept our relative ignorance of what was going on in the West during the Commodus regime.

There are scholars, of course, who have had no problem with LAC in Armorica.  Most tend to default to the so-called bellum desertorum or Deserters' War as the reason why he would have taken legionary vexillations to the Continent.  But even here scholarly opinion is divided.  Some think the revolt of Maternus was a rather small, contained and even unimportant problem for the Roman government and military.  Others (like Gilbert-Charles Picard, https://www.persee.fr/doc/crai_0065-0536_1982_num_126_3_13972 and https://www.persee.fr/doc/bsnaf_0081-1181_1987_num_1985_1_9135), drawing on an interdisciplinary approach involving archaeological findings, have forcefully argued for the severity of the event.  

The fact of the matter is both readings of ARM- could be construed as referring to participation in the bellum desertorum.  We know that when Pescennius Niger was sent to deal with Maternus' revolt, he went to Gallia Lugdunensis.  Armorica was part of that province. Whether Maternus originated in Armorica or elsewhere is not known.  But if the center of the troubled area, which eventually engulfed Gaul and Spain, was Gallia Lugdunensis, then certainly help from Britain might have been expected.  And, in fact, we know from the primary sources that Commodus demanded that the provinces send military support to deal with the deserters.  LAC may have been ordered to Armorica to deal with the rebels there.  And this is true whether the stone says ARMORICA or ARMATOS.  Certainly, the mixed nature of Maternus's forces (again, as described in the sources) could well have been described as 'armed men/soldiers.'

The problem with ARMORICA is of an entirely different order.  In short, it is not found in a single inscription (if we discount that of LAC).  In the words of Professor Roger Tomlin (personal communication):

"No, I haven't seen Armorica used in that fashion. And I see that Holder, Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz, who cites many references for are-mori-co-s and Armoricanus, does not cite a single inscription."

As precedence is everything, this fact alone casts doubt on Armorica being present on the LAC stone.

Armenia, also proposed for the LAC inscription, does not suffer from this shortcoming.  There are numerous references to this country on stones.  But if LAC does belong to the latter part of the second century, then the ARM- of his memorial does not stand for Armenia.

I recently had the very good fortune to talk with Professor John Wilkes, the man who (with his friend Anthony Birley) first removed the LAC stone from where it had been placed.  His account of this was shared with me:

"In 1962, in company with my old friend Tony Birley, I travelled from Split a few miles south along the coast where we located the two halves of the text still incorporated in the roadside field wall at Podstrana di Jesenice. The part of the stone with the key letters ARM[...] was buried but we managed to excavate it from the grass verge and confirm that there were no traces of further letters to be seen."

When I asked him what he thought of ARM-, he reflected on another stone that describes the use of parts of three British legions in Germany: 

"Some time ago, I argued that the famous text excavated from the bed of the river Tyne at the beginning of the last century naming detachments from the three legions of Britain recorded their departure for the two German provinces, rather than as generally assumed their arrival back in Britain, as generally assumed since the time of Haverfield and Richmond. The date appears to be AD 158. What is relevant to Artorius is that this, in my view, suggests a pattern of use for the three legions based in Britannia, grossly disproportionate given the size of the province, as a mobile reserve for deployment in the adjacent western regions of the Empire. Such was the case regarding the Newcastle inscription, on which a major rebellion in northern Britain was imagined, a fantasy that still appears in text-books."

The inscription Wilkes is alluding to is here:

https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/1322

With the relevant note from the discussion pasted here:

7‒8.  There have been four attempts to emend or explain:

i. EX(ERCITIBUS) GER(MANICIS) DUOBUS Wilkes, ‘(contributed) to the two German armies’. ii. Birley Fasti, citing Wilkes but understanding ‘(contributed) from the two German armies’. iii. by haplography (EX) EX(ERCITIBUS) GER(MANICIS) DUOBUS Bogaers, ‘(contributed) from the two German armies’, re-stated by Frere, but dismissed as far-fetched by Haverfield in EE ix. iv. EX(ERCITIBUS) GER(MANICIANIS) DUOBUS Speidel, ‘(contributed) to the two German armies’ [and now returning], a possibility noted by Wilkes but thought to conflict with con(t)r(i)buti.
(iv) is the best compromise so far between the natural sense of the Latin and the historical context. It requires a previous troop-movement (from Britain to Germany), but Speidel can argue from ILS 1071 and AE 1924, 74 that a second army had been temporarily concentrated in Upper Germany. This would have been after the completion of the Antonine Wall, when northern Britain was peaceful. However, note that although EX for exercitus (singular) is found in brick-stamps, the extreme and ambiguous abbreviation EX for exercitibus seems to be unparalleled in monumental inscriptions; one would have expected at least EXX or EXER.

Professor Wilkes' commentary can be found here:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20184259?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

In summary, then, I think that the ARM- of the LAC inscription could be either for ARMATOS or ARMORICA (although, in the latter case, it would be a one-off occurrence of this country name)  But in either case, we could be talking about Artorius bringing parts of three British legions to bear on the deserters of Maternus.  Granted, we cannot discount the possibility that he used these forces somewhere in Britain.  But, if so, we can have absolutely no idea who these particular 'armed men/soldiers' happened to be - or where exactly they were on the island.  We do know that a rebellious or recalcitrant army was present there during the reign of Commodus.

 T. Caunius Priscus MAY (A. Birley very tentatively posits the identification) be the Priscus who in 184 or 185-186 refused the purple offered to him by the British troops. According to Birley, this affront to the Emperor Commodus was dealt with by dismissing the senatorial legate and installing an equestrian in the role. It may well be that the equestrian in question was LAC. He then followed the order issued by Commodus to send troops in aid against the Deserters' War. The date for the war is 186 or shortly thereafter. This is a scenario that seems to work. 

This selection comes from A. Birley's THE ROMAN GOVERNMENT OF BRITAIN (pp. 168-169):

Priscus was dismissed after Ulpius Marcellus' tenure. The latter is famous, of course, for securing the northern frontier, something completed by 184, when Commodus assumed the Britannicus title. Perennis is killed as a result of his policies, especially the one replacing senators with equestrians as legates. The story about him being given to British soldiers may or may not be true, as we have another more prosaic account of his execution as well. But Alföldy and others have suggested that these 1500 British spearman may have been part of the force LAC led to Armorica. In any case, we also have (185?) Marcus Antius Crescens Calpurnianus, followed by Pertinax (185-187). I would think that given that the Deserters' War happened at this time, what we may have (ASSUMING FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT LAC WENT TO THE CONTINENT WITH HIS FORCES, INSTEAD OF SOMEWHERE IN BRITAIN) is LAC filling the gap between Priscus and Marcus.

The problem here may be in taking Priscus as governor. He was not. He was a legionary legate, possibly of the Sixth Legion. LAC may have been the acting governor, recently promoted from prefect of the Sixth. In a province with only one legion, the legatus served as the provincial governor, while in provinces with multiple legions each legion had a legatus and a separate provincial governor who had overall command. Britain had three legions, so someone other than Priscus was the overall authority of the military.  That may well have been LAC.

And no one seems to have much considered the 1,500 British javelin men of Herodian, either.  See https://books.google.com/books?id=mWHNDwAAQBAJ&pg=PP124&lpg=PP124&dq=%221,500+javelin+men%22%2B%22Perennis%22&source=bl&ots=Jrg8zxsJMv&sig=ACfU3U1uAdygjxSaamPd3_F7blFvwfpMXQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj1vrn27pjqAhVTo54KHUilDZcQ6AEwAHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=%221%2C500%20javelin%20men%22%2B%22Perennis%22&f=false.  Lanciarii of 500 men from each of the three British legions would equal 1,500.   So however these men were actually involved in action on the Continent, they answer perfectly to those detachments LAC is said to have taken against ARM-. 

Birley says this of Priscus:

He [after being removed from command over the Sixth Legion]

certainly went on to command another legion, V Macedonica, in Dacia: a

second legionary command indicates trouble where the second one was based

and there was warfare in Dacia under Commodus (HA Comm. 13. 5). There

followed command over detachments of several legions, restored as [Brita]nnicarum.

Alföldy convincingly proposes that this force was assigned to deal with

the so-called ‘deserters’ war’ and can be identified with the ‘1,500 javelin-men’

from the British army who lynched Perennis near Rome in 185 (Dio 72(73).

The problem with this narrative is obvious: how does he go from being a legate in Britain, to serving in the East, then is found once again commanding vexillations of British legions? I suspect the 'restoration' of [Brita]nnicarum is an error.  There was an Ala Britannica in Pannonia near Dacia at the time (Valeria A. Maxfield, U. of Exeter).

I have spoken with Professor Anthony Birley about Priscus.  He told me this vie personal communication:

"An update on Priscus. In my Roman Government of Britain (2005) a heavily revised version of The Fasti of R.B. I no longer refer to Caunius Priscus but discuss a  very curious long career inscription, published by Gregori in ZPE 106 (1995) 269-279, then by G. Alföldy in CIL VI 41127. Gregori's article in ZPE is on open access. I don't have my copy of CIL VI 41127 to hand. Subsequently the career is discussed  by Ioan Piso, Fasti Provinciae Daciae II (Bonn 214), in German.

Obviously we need more information...the so called 'deserters' war' may be behind the idea of a war in 'Armorica'."