ANOTHER EXPERT (DR. GEOFF TULLY) CHIMES IN ON L. ARTORIUS CASTUS AS DUX

Inscription of Velius Rufus

I've had several Roman scholars (including Professor Lawrence Keppie) refer me to the work of Dr. Geoff Tully.  Alas, his thesis is being kept locked up by his university library and they refused to permit me to access it.  

"Vexillatio : temporary units and special commands of the Roman army 211 BC-AD 268"

[https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:106031]

That being the case, I decided to contact Dr. Tully personally to ask him what he thought about the dux role of Lucius Artorius Castus, and whether or not vexillations were implied in Castus' inscription.  What follows, then, is the resulting email question-and-answer session.  My portion of the discussion is in regular font, while Dr. Tully's responses appear in italics.  

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For some time now I have been researching the Lucius Artorius Castus stone found in Podstrana, Croatia. The problem, as I see it, is that we do not have another stone where vexillations is implied - unless we can go by the following:

publication: CIL 06, 01645 (p 854, 3163, 3811, 4725) = D 02773 = IDRE-01, 00019 = EAOR-01, 00026 = AE 1965, +00223

dating: 247 to 249         EDCS-ID: EDCS-18100446

province: Roma         place: Roma

praef(ecto)] / veh[icul(orum) proc(uratori)] / lud(i) ma[gni proc(uratori)] / Lusit(aniae) trib(uno) p[raet(orianorum)] / Philipporum A[ugg(ustorum)] / p(rimo) p(ilo) duci legg(ionum) Dac(iae) / |(centurioni) corn(iculario) praeff(ectorum) pr(aetorio)

Roger Tomlin (personal communication) says that is "an odd phrase, but I take it to mean that after service in the Praetorian Guard (to which he returned) he was senior centurion of one of the legions in Dacia – not specified – and at one point commanded detachments of them all.  A 'dux legionum' will be commanding detachments, not whole legions, if only because two or three whole legions would be commanded by the legate of the province; if he was dead and unavailable, then by one of the legionary legates acting 'pro legato'. For a centurion to replace them all, even the laticlave tribunes available, seems impossible to me. 

Agreed, and spot on. As I see it, I think you’re on solid ground, because your interpretation of Artorius’ inscription is the most logical and is, I believe, supported by CIL VI 1645 above. The good thing about Artorius’ inscription is that it clearly spells out each step of his career. 

Tomlin said that I should look at the career of Velius Rufus (ILS 9200), one of Vespasian's generals. He is 'primus pilus' of XII Fulminata, who does all the things that LAC did a century later: 'prefect' of a whole string of legionary vexillations (the legions named), procurator with 'ius gladii'.

Yes, I’m rather fond of Velius and I mention him often in my work. I think you have drawn a good parallel here with Artorius.

[For Velius, my blog readers can consult https://www.livius.org/articles/person/velius-rufus/.]

I suppose that someone reading three British legions to Armenia could have assumed he meant vexillations.  This is how Tomlin would have it.  He cites several errors in the Castus inscription, and has no problem with the carver simply leaving vexillations out in this context. 

Agreed. I think this is the most logical explanation. No emperor at this time would ever have stripped Britain of its legionaries in this way. Vexillations are implied, as they would have been to any Roman military man who read the inscription, i.e. taking into account Artorius’ previous and following posts - prefect of a legion and procurator of the tiny province of Liburnia. Those postings do not suggest to the reader that he commanded three legions, or even one, in between the two postings. Indeed, if he did have such a command, one would wonder why he didn’t explicitly spell it out, e.g. by naming the legions, as he clearly did with each of his earlier postings. In other words, it doesn’t make sense that one would spell out, in great detail, their early career and then not similarly detail what would have been the most important command of their lifetime. Commanding one, let alone three legions, was a very big deal. I think the reason he does not spell this out is because he never led two/three legions. That said (and I hope I’m not doing Artorius a disservice here), I do wonder whether the suggestion, in the inscription, of a more powerful command is deceptively deliberate, bearing in mind that Artorius set this up in his own lifetime. Not everyone who read it would have had military experience and would know how to interpret it correctly. In other words, he may have been trying to make his command sound rather more important than it really was. Still, his more likely command was significant all the same, and one that suggests that he was a highly capable combat commander, presumably, the best of his rank in Britain at the time.

Could he have said he was leading three entire legions if he were leading his own Sixth with large vexillations from the other two British legions WITHIN BRITAIN?  In other words, leading such a force from York to the North.  Not taking them outside of Britain.  As he was prefect of the Sixth, he could have taken over command, say, in 180, when the legate and other men were killed as tribesmen crossed the Wall.  We could assume the legate and his senior tribune had been killed, and Castus had to take over.  The Sixth may have been depleted and required reinforcement from detachments from the other two British legions.  In this instance, might he have felt justified in claiming he had led three British legions on his stone?

In such scenarios the next officer in the chain of command must have taken temporary command until his replacement arrived. And, the scenario as laid out, with reinforcements from the other two legions, is plausible, but as you point out, one then has to interpret adversus arm[…]s as this armatos you say has been proposed, which does not seem convincing at all. I would also point out that Artorius laid out his career in detail, i.e. he was obviously proud of his career and achievements, so why would he then describe his greatest enemy as simply ‘armed men?’ That doesn’t make sense. So, I would interpret the relevant part of the text as ‘field commander of [vexillations of the three] British legions against the Armenians’.

Tomlin and others feel the PRAEFF is a stonecutting error, as for him to have been prefect twice, there would have to be an intervening post.  Can you account for him being prefect of the same legion twice in a row, when this rank was often held for a long period of time just once?

PRAEFF could be a stonecutting error as Tomlin suggests; that’s one interpretation. But Artorius’ career is so carefully described that I prefer to read it as written. If there is a missing intervening post, perhaps it is his command of the vexillations of the British legions, e.g. perhaps he was prefect of Legio VI, made commander of vexillations of the British legions against the Armenians and upon his return took up once again the post of prefect of Legio VI, and to avoid costly repetition on the stone this was abbreviated to PRAEFF LEG VI VICTRICIS. That’s a second interpretation, but I even wonder if Artorius is counting his second go as prefect of Legio VI as his command of the vexillations? The term dux at this point in time is not a rank, but a title, i.e. ‘field commander’, so presumably his rank was still ‘prefect’ during his mission to Armenia. So is Artorius counting this as a second go as prefect of Legio VI? I’m not sure we’ll ever know which is correct.