All along, the academic community has insisted that 'vexillations', missing from the LAC memorial stone inscription, is implied. I have, for the most part, agreed with this assessment. When one uses this as a baseline for exploration of the ARM[...]S of the inscription, two candidates emerge for the fragmentary word : Armenia and Armorica. For the former we have a well-known recorded event, while for the latter we possess no independent record of conflict (other than the possibility that the so-called Deserters' War seems to have involved Gaul).
However, an extensive search on my part has failed to produce another single example of a stone where vexillations is implied. While it is true that Castus, from the standpoint of vanity, may simply have been exaggerating his status as duke by choosing to leave out any mention of vexillations, this is not a very satisfactory solution to the problem. Anyone who knew him or who knew of him would immediately recognize that he was lying in the context of a perpetual monument. Such an intentional omission seems, for that reason, to be highly unlikely. At least in the opinion of this writer.
We might also say that anyone reading that LAC had led three British legions to Armenia or Armorica would recognize immediately that vexillations were intended, for the entire legionary complement of the large British province would never have been sent to either place. Still, such a statement could have been seen as a lazy one at the very least, or at the worst taken as a major carving error.
So, if we allow for the possibility that vexillations are unlikely to be implied, how are we to properly read the stone?
Well, we need to fall back on what Professor Roger Tomlin told me several months ago...
All three legions would never have been removed entire and simultaneously from their bases and brought against anyone, whether in country or without. However, as LAC was prefect of the Sixth, he could well have led his own legion (assuming the legate and senior tribune were adsent or dead) plus generous vexillations drawn from the other two British legions. In this sense, he would have felt justified in proclaiming on his stone that he was dux (temporary military commander) of three British legions.
As this is the only instance in which a reading of three British legions without the vexillations qualifier can be allowed for a dux in the 2nd century, we must then ask if there is any record of such a catastrophe having befallen the Sixth Legion in the time period we are considering.
As a matter of fact, there is.
"When the tribes in that island, crossing the wall that separated them from the Roman legions, proceeded to do much mischief and cut down a general together with his troops, Commodus became alarmed but sent Ulpius Marcellus against them. This man, who was temperate and frugal and always lived like a soldier in the matter of his food as well as in everything else when he was at war, was becoming haughty and arrogant; he was most conspicuously incorruptible, and yet was not of a pleasant or kindly nature. He showed himself more wakeful than any other general, and as he wished the others who were associated with him to be alert also, he used to write orders on twelve tablets, such as are made out of linden wood, almost every evening, and bid an aide to deliver them to such-and‑such persons at various hours, so that these officers, believing the general the always awake, might not themselves take their fill of sleep. For nature in the first place had made him able to resist sleep, and he had developed this faculty by the discipline of fasting. For in general he would never eat to satiety, and in order that he might not take his fill even of bread, he used to send to Rome for it. This was not because he could not eat the bread of the country, but in order that his bread might be so stale that he should be unable to eat even a small portion more than was absolutely necessary; for his gums were tender and, if the bread was very dry, would soon begin to bleed. However, he purposely exaggerated his natural tendency by simulating, in order that he might have the greatest possible reputation for wakefulness. Such a man was Marcellus; and he ruthlessly put down the barbarians of Britain..."
This killing of the commander and his men happened c. 180.
Much discussion has revolved around whether the said commander was legate, undoubtedly of the Sixth Legion, or the British governor. Fortunately, that controversy has now been resolved. I prepared the following piece some time ago and can offer the link here:
An excellent discussion of the strategos as legate of the Sixth can be found in Anthony Birley's THE GOVERNMENT OF ROMAN BRITAIN, pp. 166-167:
"It was argued previously that there were two governors of Britain called Ulpius Marcellus. The first was taken to have been appointed by Commodus, because of the phraseology of Dio-Xiphilinus (72(73). 8. 2): ‘Marcellus was sent against the Britons’ by that emperor, interpreted as ‘sent to Britain’, after the death in battle of the ‘general’, assumed to be his predecessor. The Commodan governor Marcellus is clearly attested by the inscriptions from Chesters, one of which calls him legate of a single emperor, leg. Aug. pr. pr. The consular governor under whom Tineius Longus was made a senator and designated quaestor ‘by the decrees of our (two) best and greatest Emperors’, iudiciis optimorum maximorumque impp., was interpreted as a later homonym, perhaps son of the Commodan governor; and the two emperors were identified as Caracalla and Geta.¹³³ The argument seemed to be reinforced by the passage in Dio-Xiphilinus: ‘the barbarians . . . killed a general, strathgÎn tv tina, with his soldiers’. Dio’s most frequent word for governor is £rcwn, but he also uses Ógem*n and various phrases; and in a military context in his work strathgÎß generally means governor, as with Julius Agricola (Gov. 11, 66. 20. 3), Julius Severus (Gov. 21, 69. 13. 2), and indeed with Ulpius Marcellus himself a little later in this very passage (72. 8. 4).¹³⁴ Hence it was concluded that the unnamed strathgÎß was the governor, in office c.182 or 183, who was killed and replaced urgently by Ulpius Marcellus.¹³⁵ Others were content to understand strathgÎß as legionary legate¹³⁶—even though elsewhere Dio uses the term Ëpostr3thgoß for this officer (60. 20. 3, 62. 26. 6, and 72(73). 9. 2a, cf. below; cf. 78. 21. 2, 79. 7. 2).
The diplomas now show that Ulpius Marcellus was already governor under Marcus and Commodus, in March 178—and had probably been appointed the previous year. Hence there is no obstacle to his being the governor under two emperors of the Benwell altar. It cannot be excluded that he was appointed in 177 but had been replaced, perhaps soon after Commodus’ accession as sole ruler in 180—and then sent back again after the disaster incurred by the unnamed ‘general’, who would then be his successor as well as his predecessor.¹³⁷ This would be almost unparalleled, but there is the case of Corbulo, legate of Cappadocia from 54/55 to 60, then moved to Syria, but in 63 sent back to Cappadocia, after the debâcle incurred by his successor there.¹³⁸ It is no doubt safer to concede that it was only a legionary legate that lost his life, presumably of VI Victrix, the legion nearest to the wall—which wall is not specified in the Dio passage, but it was no doubt that of Hadrian, since the Antonine Wall had evidently been out of commission for over twenty years (see under Gov. 27)."
Roger Tomlin, in his BRITANNIA ROMANA, pp. 165 and 167, says much the same thing:
[three inscriptions supplied here]
If we allow for not only the legate of the Sixth having been killed c. 180, but also the legion's second in command, the tribunus laticlavius, then it would be a given that the prefect of the legion would then automatically take over the leadership of the legion. If it were actively going into battle against an enemy, as was obviously the case, then he would have been dux. He would have remained dux until a new legate was chosen for the legion. If the account preserved in Dio is at all sequential, the new legate in question may have been the Priscus whose troops tried to raise to the purple following the successful completion of the British War.
It goes without saying that as the Sixth was based in northern England (York) and was always involved with actions to the north, that a military action in the north is to be expected. In fact, anyone reading an inscription that involved a mission by the British Sixth Legion would assume that its mission had taken place in the north of the island.
Note that there is no other recorded historical event for the latter part of the 2nd century which would allow us to have LAC the prefect become dux of the Sixth along with vexillations from the other two British legions and to have engaged in military action in North Britain. This killing of the strategos (= legatus), almost certainly of the Sixth Legion, along with his men is the only event we know of that could have catapulted Castus into a command position in the context of the British theater. ANY OTHER PROPOSED SCENARIO IS PURELY AN IMAGINARARY CONSTRUCT WITH NO BASIS IN FACT WHATSOEVER.
So, if LAC were leading his own depleted Sixth along with large vexillations from the other two British legions against the 'tribes' of the island, what are we to make of the ARM[...]S of the memorial stone inscription? Must we default to the proposed reading of ARMATOS, 'armed men' (see "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, https://www.jies.org/, by Linda A. Malcor and her colleagues Antonio Trinchese and Alessandro Faggiana)? Can we allow such a neutral term as ARMATOS to represent the tribes who crossed the wall in 180?
Alas, no. ARMATOS has been universally rejected by every respected Roman military historian and Latin epigrapher I have consulted. There are so many more appropriate, specific and unambiguous terms LAC could have used in this context. Roger Tomlin has offered several possibilities (REBELLES, LATRONES, HOSTES, DEFECTORES, DESERTORES). His concluding statement on the possibility of ARMATOS being used to refer to the 180 A.D. incident reads as follows:
"ARMATOS is not specific enough. He might have said something like HOSTES P.R., but I still go for the name of a tribe. 'Armed men' is much too vague for his audience in Croatia, and the rest of his epitaph is severely factual."
Earlier, Tomlin had remarked, with some amusement, "Did any Roman officer ever boast instead of marching against INERMES [unarmed men]?"
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