AN END TO ARMATOS IN THE LUCIUS ARTORIUS CASTUS INSCRIPTION

Fragment of a Second Lucius Artorius Castus Stone

More intense conversation with a half a dozen top epigraphers and historians on the possibility that ARMATOS should be the word in the LAC inscription represented by ARM[...]S has now reached its conclusion.

The result, nicely summarized by Professor Roger Tomlin only just this morning:

"[Caius Julius Septimius] Castinus specifies just where his troops came from, and this is typical of vexillation-inscriptions. That is what he thought mattered. His opponents were men who had taken up arms outside the law – and I don't think armatos can carry such a force. It simply means 'armed men'. I made a casual search after the phrase, and I found Tacitus, Ann. i 59, which reports a speech made by Arminius mocking a major campaign by the Romans which achieved only the capture of his wife who was pregnant. Whereas he had destroyed three Roman legions and fought against armed men, he said, not pregnant women: sibi tres legiones, totidem legatos procubuisse; non enim se proditione neque adversus feminas gravidas, sed palam adversus armatos bellum tractare.

I think armatos is a neutral term, and that a Roman general wouldn't have congratulated himself on fighting against 'armed men', any more than he would have recorded a campaign against inermes. 

Claudius Candidus is another general like your Castinus. He was legate of Hispania Citerior, et in eo duci terra marique adversus rebelles h(ostes) p(ublicos) (Dessau ILS 1140). It is the nature of the command that matters, and that the opposition were (internal enemies) armed illegally; not that they were armed men, period."

To date, I have failed to find a single scholar who will support the ARMATOS reading.  It is, therefore, with reluctance that I must abandon the possibility.

ARMENIOS is only possible if LAC was in Britain as prefect of the Sixth well before the advent there of the 5,500 Sarmatians.  This is precluded if I'm right about the sub-Roman Arthur being born at Ribchester.  As the supportive argument (most would call it "evidence") for this is quite strong, I am not willing to let go of it. The temptation is there as well to link LAC with the 1500 British troops said to march on Rome and execute Perennis.  While we can't know for certain, the fact that all 1500 are armed with the same weapon, a kontos, at least suggests these may have been Sarmatian cavalrymen.

So that leaves something else for ARM[...]S.  ARMORICOS would seem fine, and would doubtless refer to the Deserters' War, except that the necessary C-O ligature does not fit the style of lettering on the stone and our earliest example of this rare ligature appears to be Severan.  I'm exploring the possibility of a different kind of truncation for ARMORICOS, and have not yet given up on finding an as yet unknown alternative reading.  

In conclusion, I offer Tomlin's last thoughts on the LAC stone inscription:

"I am committed, as you know, to the 'Armenian' interpretation of LAC's career.

But perhaps you should play with the published photographs of his inscription, and see just how many letters can be fitted into the gap. There is some use of ligature, but like you, I am not happy with 'o' within 'C'. But I don't think ARMORICOS can be abbreviated, quite apart from the embarrassment that the term was properly – as you, a Celticist would know – AREMORICOS. I think if the stone-cutter was saving space, he wouldn't have used ADVERSVS. CONTRA would have saved him two letters. The use of ADVERSVS rather suggests that he wasn't using abbreviation here."