JULY 2020 SUMMARY OF MY HISTORICAL ARTHUR THEORY

Artist's Reconstruction of the Ribchester Roman Fort

My readers have doubtless been aware that over the past few weeks I have been working diligently to try and place Lucius Artorius Castus within a proper historical framework.  My main focus has been the chronology of his career, and most particularly his service in Britain.  

Needless to say, when I embarked on this hazardous road I encountered many a pitfall and dead-end.  There was a ton of conflicting information - and strong opinion - on when LAC should be situated.  I took forever to work around it all, and I finally decided I just had to do my own thing.  Something that made sense to me.  And that meant collating all the data and coming up with what seemed to me the most probable scenario.  

I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Linda Malcor, Antonio Trinchese and Alessandro Faggiani for their help in dispensing with the proposed (and widely accepted) reading of ARMENIOS for the ARM- of the LAC memorial stone. While I eventually found it necessary to abandon their own new interpretation of ARMATOS, I do now finally feel that I have a firm enough fix on him in the sequence of 2nd century A.D. events. 

Why was this so important to my research on a 6th century Arthur?  Well, I have for awhile possessed a semi-viable theory connecting this Arthur to the Roman fort at Ribchester.  And that fort was garissoned by Sarmatians, and became the home of Sarmatian veterans in Britain.  If LAC could be shown to belong to a period in which he could have interacted (via his belonging to the Legio V Macedonica) with the Sarmatians in 175 (when they were defeated by Marcus Aurelius and 5,500 were sent to Britain), and his later use of three British legions (or vexillations of the same) fit within that scheme, and we accept as a reasonable conjecture that the 1500 javelin men taken to Armorica in the Deserters' War and thence to Rome to execute Perennis could well have been Sarmatian cavalry (akontis in the Dio epitome being an error for kontos), then I can safely conclude that my Ribchester Arthur is a valid candidate for the legendary hero.  

For details on my earlier SUMMARY OF RESEARCH, please see the following link:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/06/june-2020-summary-of-my-historical.html

Over the next few days, I will be posting the Amazon link to my final revision of THE BATTLE-LEADER OF RIBCHESTER.  This title will be allowed to stand as my final book on a historical Arthur.  I thank my readers for their patience and understanding.  It's been a long, hard road - but at last I have arrived at my destination.