HAVING OUR CAKE AND EATING IT, TOO: LUCIUS ARTORIUS CASTUS IN ARMENIA AND IN BRITAIN C. 175

Armenian Artaxata with Mount Ararat in the Background

My readers know now that for months I have been struggling with the following dilemma: how do I reconcile reading ARMENIOS [1] on the LAC stone when I am fairly certain the sub-Roman Arthur was born at Ribchester of the Sarmatian veterenas?  The problem has to do with chronology, as it is claimed LAC could not have both gone to Armenia in 163 and been in Britain in 175 when the 5,500 Sarmatian troops were sent there.

As is so often the case, I have been operating in ignorance or, to be more precise, I have been relying on unreliable information.  I've just had a lengthy discussion with Professor Roger Tomlin, who strongly prefers the ARMENIOS reading.  What I asked him was simply whether LAC as camp prefect of the Sixth could have gone with a task force with Statius Priscus to Armenia in 163, and then returned to Britain to finish out his service.  The corollary to this question is whether LAC could have been in Britain in 175.  What follows is his response to these questions:

"As a centurion proceeding to even more senior posts, LAC would not have been confined to 25 years' service.  It is quite possible that he returned to Britain after his command in Armenia. After all, the troops he commanded must have returned!

I can't put weight on the double F of PRAEF. On the stone, it looks so much as if someone drew PRAFF (as if a mistake for PRAEF) and then inserted E ligatured to A. If he were really Prefect twice, I am sure he would have said ITERVM. But normally he would go to another legion.

It is possible that LAC was directly commissioned ex equite Romano into the centurionate, and was thus comparatively young when he became Prefect. You needn't suppose he serv ed 12+ years in the ranks before becoming centurion.

Look in Pflaum at Cn. Marcius Rustius Rufinus, who became centurion in the reign of Marcus, and proceeded through a series of posts like those held by LAC to become Severus' praefectus vigilum in c.207. This is a 30-year career.

If you commission LAC directly into the centurionate, say in the mid-150s, he need only be in his mid-40s in 175. But it becomes difficult to give him a re-run, another field command, ten years later."

In other words, LAC was probably not still in Britain in Perennis was executed in 185.  However, he could well have been there in 175 when the 5,500 Sarmatians were deposited on the island. As camp prefect of the Sixth, the legion responsible for the troubled North, he doubtless would have had significant interaction with them.  

We would have to leave the 1500 British spearmen who marched on Rome to deal with Perennis to someone else - perhaps to Priscus, whom I have discussed before at some length (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-problem-of-priscus-loyal-legate.html). 

This is, I think, a rather elegant solution to the problem posed by the fragmentary state of the LAC memorial stone.  

In any case, once we accept LAC as dux of British vexillations taken to Armenia, we need not worry about the 1500 spearmen. He does not mention them on his stone. Tomlin is himself in some doubt as to the veracity of Dio Cassius' account on this "deputation" to Rome, and his reservations are reinforced by our possession of alternate versions of Perennis' end (e.g. Herodian).  

[1] The only good reading for the ARM[...]S of the Lucius Artorius Castus memorial inscription is ARMENIOS, either with a ligatured ME (which was reported by Carrara, but is no longer visible) or a ligatured NI.  AR[E]MORICOS OR AR[E]MORICANOS does not work not only because it is otherwise unattested on inscriptions, but because it would require a rare C/o ligature that does not seem to occur prior to the Severan period and is not in keeping with the style of the stone's lettering.  ARMATOS has been rejected universally as an unacceptable reading.