WHY LUCIUS ARTORIUS CASTUS WAS NEVER 'DE FACTO' GOVERNOR OF BRITAIN

Britons Attacking Hadrian's Wall

Over the last few days, I have been engaging in an intense converesation with Alessandro Faggiani, co-author of "Missing Pieces: A New Reading of the Main Lucius Artorius Castus Inscription", Journal of Indo-European Studies, 2019 (https://www.jies.org/).  The authors claim that LAC became the de facto governor of Britain between the tenures of Pertinax and Albinus.

There is really no basis for this claim.  Their idea is fairly straight-forward: LAC was dux of the three entire legions and not vexillations.  There were no senators available for the post of governor because Commodus had given their offices to equestrians (like LAC). After Pertinax asked Commodus to return to Rome, Castus ruled the legions and the province.

I really don't know where to start here, but I will try.  Firstly, as an example of the title dux of legions being used prior to the time of LAC to prove governorship of a province, Faggiani referred me to this inscription:

http://db.edcs.eu/epigr/epi_einzel.php?s_sprache=de&p_belegstelle=CIL%2008%2C%2009365&r_sortierung=Belegstelle&fbclid=IwAR0O98UYU0h7eiNqPUArStEscPyQalKJm1c1Q4zzzwPCg-_Fn6pqCj0Vtcs

Dated to the reign of Marcus Aurelius, Commodus' predecessor, it tells of a senator who styles himself 'consul and dux of the three Dacias.' I was puzzled as to how this inscription helped Faggiani's argument.  He then explained that a) Commodus had replaced the legates in Britain with equestrians, allowing us to equate LAC with Sextus Cornelius Clemens and b) the use of dux here proved that the title could be used in the early period for governor. He then sent me  CIL 02, 04114, another consul and senator of the very late 2nd century who held the dux title as a special command against rebels and public enemies. 

Okay.  Understood. But here is my problem with all this.  First, if we are to propose that no senators were available, we have to ask where Ulpius Marcellus, Pertinax and Albinus came from.  All three were senators and were appointed governors of Britain by Commodus.  It was once believed that Ulpius Marcellus had either served two almost back to back terms as governor or that there were two identically named men serving those terms.  However, thanks to the Benwell inscription, we now know that he actually served several years consecutively.  It has similarly been assumed that there was a gap between Pertinax and Albinus, but there is no great difficulty in allowing for Pertinax to have served as governor for over five years, especially with the internal problems the province was experiencing.  Thus there may be no gap at all between Pertinax and Albinus.  Anthony Birley himself did not think this was impossible.

Second, in claiming that LAC was dux of three legions because he could have been just like Clemens with his Dacias is wrong.  As senator and consul, Clemens is saying that those ranks make him commander of the three Dacias.  While commander of the legions of those provinces may be implied, it is not stated.  More importantly, Faggiani and his colleagues are trying to prove LAC a governor when the context in which dux of three British legions is found precludes this conclusion from being made.  For LAC specifically states he commanded the legionary force AGAINST (ADVERSUS) an enemy (ARM[...]S).  This means that his role of dux was a special command given to a junior officer, an officer assigned a temporary military task.  Had LAC instead merely said 'dux of three legions', well, we might then be left scratching our heads and give pause.  But he does not say that.  He goes out of his way to tell us that he was leading the legionary force against someone - NOT THAT HE WAS GOVERNOR OF BRITAIN! Nor does he call himself dux Britanniarum, 'commander of Britain' (to borrow a later phrase).  

As for the three legions, I have over and over explained that an entire legionary complement would never be taken anywhere - either inside or outside of Britain.  Tomlin, in considering the possibility that LAC may have been fighting in the North, rightly judged that as prefect of the Sixth, LAC may well have led that entire legion, but that we can only allow for vexillations from the other two to be supplementing it.  Had this been done (and I have adequately accounted for this happening in the context of the A.D. 180 disaster, when several British tribes broke through the Wall, killing the legate of the Sixth and many of his men), LAC would have been justified in writing three legions on his stone.  Otherwise, he would have had to write that he was dux of the Sixth (or of the same, as he had just previously written prefect of the Sixth), plus vexillations from the other two British legions (whose names he might have had to supply).  Given space requirements, he short-handed this to 'three British legions.'  Never, ever, even in an emergency such as was happening in the North, would all three legions have been withdrawn entirely from their bases at the same time.

The only reason for refusing to accept LAC's leading of the Sixth with generous detachments from the other two British legions is the stubborn insistence on viewing LAC as governor.  But he was not claiming to be governor, as I have explained above.  He was claiming to be taking a large legionary force against an enemy, which automatically guarantees that he was a junior officer performing a special military task of a temporary nature.  

Another point must be raised, and I believe this to be quite damaging to Faggiani's argument.  Our evidence strongly suggests that Priscus, legate of the Sixth legion, whose troops try to raise to the purple following the successful completion of the British War in 184, is transferred to a command of the Macedonian legion.  This is a very brief assignment, as he is shortly thereafter leading British vexillations in the Deserters' War, and it is in all likelihood some of his troops that go to Rome to execute Perennis. Perennis, the Praetorian Prefect under Commodus who was blamed for replacing legates with prefects, is not killed until 185.  That means that while Perennis was still alive, we have a senatorial legate still in place in Britain.  

Once Perennis was killed, his policy concerning the replacement of senators with equestrians was reversed.  Yet Faggiani is declaring that between Pertinax and Albinus, there were no senators available for the governorship of Britain! Pertinax's tenure as British governor started in 185.

So, what we have is a theory that proposes that after Perennis had been killed, partly at least for replacing legates with equestrians, and after that policy had been reversed, and AFTER the tenure of Pertinax, there were no senators in the entire Roman world who could be appointed as governor of Britain.  It's as if the entire senatorial class had suddenly ceased to exist. Bear in mind I am playing Devil's Advocate here, because as I've already discussed above, there is a good chance the supposed gap between Pertinax and Albinus did not exist.  If it did not, there is no need to put forward the equestrian governor LAC.

Having dispensed with all that nonsense, there is only one question left for us to ask: at what point did LAC become commander of legionary forces against ARM-? Well, there are only two events we know of in the extant sources that we could make cases for.  I once flirted with the idea that LAC, prefect of the Sixth, may have replaced Priscus, legate of the Sixth.  But if this is so, and LAC became dux at this point, we must bear in mind the British war was over.  He would have had to be leading his legionary force against mutinous Roman soldiers.  But it is unlikely these would have been referred to as simply ARMATOS, the best reading we have at present for that fragmentary ARM[...]S on his memorial stone.  In truth, if Priscus were the legate of the Sixth, as seems most likely, it was the Sixth that was threatening mutiny, as they had tried to raise their legate to the purple.  That such a legion would have then been sent with a new commander against its own soldiers makes little sense.  In fact, it is quite nonsensical. 

For this reason, we must default to the invasion of the British tribes across the Wall in 180.  If the legate of the Sixth had been killed, and many soldiers of the Sixth, it would have been a natural development for LAC, prefect of the Sixth, to have been made dux over that legion, whose depleted condition was bolstered by large detachments from the other two British legions.