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The Lucius Artorius Castus Inscription (Reconstructed)
In “L. Artorius Castus and King Arthur”, Journal of Indo-European Studies, Volume 48, Number 1 & 2, Spring/Summer 2020, pp. 61-75, Bradley Skeen made his case against the theory presented in “Missing Pieces: A New Reading of the Main Lucius Artorius Castus Inscription”, Journal of Indo-European Studies, Volume 47, 2019, pp. 415-437, by Linda A. Malcor, Antonio Trinchese and Alessandro Faggiani.
In the words of Christopher Gwinn (http://christophergwinn.com/arthuriana/lac-sourcebook/),
"Skeen is highly critical of Malcor and company’s amateurish reading and translation of LAC’s inscriptions (along with their highly speculative-bordering-on-fantasy conclusions about LAC’s life and career). He offers his own analysis of LAC’s cursus honorum and concurs with Higham that ARM[ENIO]S is the most likely reading on the main inscription and that LAC was dux during Lucius Verus’ Armenian Parthian war of 161-166 AD."
My own very extensive research into the nature of the career of LAC led me to arrive at the same conclusion. However, my treatment of the problem has been much more comprehensive. Unfortunately, my findings were spread out of literally dozens of blog essays. I had always intended to put everything together in one piece, but have only now found the time to do that. The best I had been able to manage in the past was to cobble together sections into one rather unwieldy work:
While that post is important (it includes things such as the late Anthony Birley's admission that Roger Tomlin was right about reading ARMENIOS in the LAC inscription), I remained unsatisifed with it.
So, rather than address the points Skeen brings up, I will tackle the entire original paper by Malcor et al. For each argument they offer in support of their chronology and the martial activities of LAC, I will supply links to relevant articles in which I decisively counter their claims or quote passages from the top epigraphers and Roman historians in the world. Hopefully, this will suffice to finally put an end to the promulgation of a theory which everyone else in the professional Arthurian community considers invalid.
ARGUMENT NO. 1 - THE SHIFT FROM NOMINATIVE TO DATIVE
Skeen does a fine job of accounting for this change:
"The inscription bearing Castus’ complete cursus was
erected by his son or other relative who bore the same same—L.
Artorius Castus. He is the subject of the inscription as we know
since this name occurs in the nominative in the first line. The
following information about Castus is in the dative since the
monument is dedicated to him, and the text returns to the
nominative at the end when the dedicator refers to himself
again. This is an ordinary pattern for memorial inscriptions.4
The general sense for the entire inscription is: L. Artorius
Castus, to the man who led this cursus, dedicates this text (Kurilic
2014; Higham 2018: 18-19). Malcor et al. (2019: 419) suggest,
however, that Castus, the subject of the inscription, dedicated it
to himself. This would be without parallel in Latin epigraphy;
the normal form for setting up one’s own cursus was to place
all the titles and articles in the nominative along with the name,
as on Castus’ sarcophagus lid which he evidently prepared in
advance. Malcor et al. suggest that Castus might have died
while the larger inscription was being made, causing the
stonecutter to change the grammatical case mid-sentence in
line with the change of patron (though as they admit, it returns
to the nominative at the end when the dedicator is again
mentioned). In fact, the inscription dates after Castus’ death and
commemorates and advertises, on a plaque originally mounted
on the wall of the family crypt, the founder of the family
fortune and a distinguished ancestor (Cambi 2014)."
I would note that Professor Roger Tomlin (p. 156 BRITANNIA ROMANA: ROMAN INSCRIPTIONS AND ROMAN BRITAIN) says merely that "the stone-cutter made some mistakes." That he is right about this is strongly suggested by the presence of other errors in the text. Trying to account for the switch from nominative to dative and then back to nominative again by extraordinary means (see, for example, the attempt by Kurilić, Anamarija, who in https://www.academia.edu/7922914/Some_Problems_concerning_the_Reading_of_the_CIL_3_12813 proposes more than one LAC being involved in the inscription) is, therefore, an unnecessary exercise. Nor does the subject of who had the inscription done, whether in whole or in part, have any real bearing on the reading and significance of the inscription itself.
ARGUMENT NO. 2 - "The use of “praeposito classis Misenatium” gives us a clue as to
the inscription’s date."
It does not. See https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-misuse-of-praepositus-classis-rank.html.
It does not. See https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-misuse-of-praepositus-classis-rank.html.
ARGUMENT NO. 3 - "That brings us to the puzzle of PRAEFF. While this
element is usually dismissed as a carving error, multiplying the
final consonant in an inscription is actually a way to save space
by indicating that the rank was held more than once (Egbert
1896: 447).9 If the letter is doubled, as in PRAEFF, the rank was
held twice. If the letter is tripled, as in PRAEFFF, the rank was
held three times. And so forth. This means that Castus held the
rank of praefect twice while he was in the VI Victrix."
This is simply wrong. As Tomlin puts its, "... praef(ectus) was cut as PRAEFF, although the repeated F should indicate a plural ('prefects')..." Via private communication, he expanded on this statement:
"I don't know of any instance of the final letter being repeated in this way, to indicate repeated tenure. It will be spelt out, with ITERVM. He would have remained prefect while dux. 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."
"I don't know of any instance of the final letter being repeated in this way, to indicate repeated tenure. It will be spelt out, with ITERVM. He would have remained prefect while dux. 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."
Professor Lawrence Keppie agrees with this analysis:
"The stonecutter might have confused himself with the word PRAEF having the ligatured letters AE before the FF, but there seems no reason why that should have affected the FF. There clearly isn't a second prefecture mentioned."
"The stonecutter might have confused himself with the word PRAEF having the ligatured letters AE before the FF, but there seems no reason why that should have affected the FF. There clearly isn't a second prefecture mentioned."
ARGUMENT NO. 4 - "Another possibility is that Castus could have been
praefectus Sarmatarum gentilium (“praefect of the Sarmatian
people”)."
This is an instance of imagination or 'wishful thinking' only. Perhaps workable in a fictional version of LAC's career - not in that of a scientifically historical one. As such, it is barely deserving of mention, and certainly not worthy of additional comment.
ARGUMENT NO. 5 - LAC as 'dux' with that title/rank denoting a governor of a province.
ARGUMENT NO. 6 - LAC as a praefectus legionum, rather than a praefectus castrotum:
ARGUMENT NO. 7 - LAC led the entire legionary complement of Britain, rather than just legionary vexillations:
ARGUMENT NO. 8 - "The alternate reading that ARM- stands for ARMENIOS is
not possible. While there were disturbances in Armenia in the
second century, there are several problems with this reading.
First, the disturbances were addressed by Lucius Verus ca. 162-
166 C.E. That puts the conflict far too early for someone who
was a dux in the late second century to have been involved in
the fighting. Second, the fighting was against the Parthians, not
the Armenians. And third, Rome was having serious problems
with its legions in Britannia."
ARGUMENT NO. 9 - "There was unrest in the local
populations as well as among the soldiers. It is hard to imagine
that cohorts and alae would have been taken from Britannia
and transferred all the way across the empire to fight in
Armenia when there were several perfectly good legions who
were not having problems already in the area (Migliorati
2011:428)."
From Roger Tomlin:
"I would evade their point about war looming in Britain by saying that, if so, it was no time to be withdrawing an experienced and competent governor (Statius Priscus) for service elsewhere. That he was sent to Armenia rather suggests that it was felt safe to do so, and to send troops there as well from Britain.
[This is especially true as only vexillations would have been taken, leaving the bulk of the legions intact in Britain. It is also true that troops in Britain could have been replaced from elsewhere in fairly short order. A "looming" war is not the same as an actual war. It only means that trouble was expected from Britain - something that was a common state of affairs for that unruly province.]"
Professor John Wilkes kindly referred me to https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/1322. The stone describes the transfer of troops from Britain to Germany and thence back again c. 158.
From Wilkes (personal communication):
"Some time ago, I argued that the famous text excavated from the bed of the river Tyne at the beginning of the last century naming detachments from the three legions of Britain recorded their departure for the two German provinces, rather than as generally assumed their arrival back in Britain, as generally assumed since the time of Haverfield and Richmond. The date appears to be AD 158. What is relevant to Artorius is that this, in my view, suggests a pattern of use for the three legions based in Britannia, grossly disproportionate given the size of the province, as a mobile reserve for deployment elsewhere."
This reading of the stone has received consensus acceptance. It suggests that troops could be taken from Britain around 160 for use in Armenia.
Tomlin later added:
"I see Statius Priscus as being transferred at short notice from Britain to take command in Armenia. He did not necessarily travel with troops from Britain – indeed, since his mission was urgent, I expect he went ahead of them. I have only suggested that he chose a reliable man whom he knew to take command of the (hypothetical) British contingent. Other contingents were being dispatched from the Rhine and Danube frontiers [1]. LAC was only commanding an improvised unit in – according to my reconstruction – the field army that was assembled to campaign in Armenia. Statius Priscus was its commander-in-chief, but he did not 'command' each of its components as well, except in the sense that a modern lieutenant-general commands all the battalions in his army, each under its own lieutenant-colonel.
"That war was supposedly looming in Britain when Priscus left need not overly disturb us. The Augustan History always seems to point to trouble in Britain at the accession of a new Emperor – and if major warfare really was impending there, why transfer your best general somewhere else?"
[1]
While Britain is very far away from Armenia (pretty much on the other side of the Empire!), we know that a legion stationed at Bonn, Germany, on the Rhine was sent to Armenia, as were Danubian detachments. Both Tomlin and Birley say the most likely route to be taken by Priscus involved going quickly up the Rhine and then down along the Danube. In any event, the objection to troops going from Britain to Armenia because of distance is moot: obviously, Priscus himself had no trouble going there.
ARGUMENT NO. 10 - "Procurator Centenario provinciae Liburniae ius gladii VI... Next, there’s a VI at the end of that line. The beginning of
the last line has always been reconstructed as “vivus ipse sibi et
suis” with the VI of VIVVS, for some reason, following gladi
even though the bottom line, which is centered, had plenty of
room for it. We propose that the last line is complete, with VVS
standing for VIVVS, and that the VI is a number that belongs
where it was placed: after gladi. This changes the reading of
Castus’s last post to “procurator centenarius of the province of
Liburnia, with the power to pass death sentence even on
Senators, six times.”26 It is six years from 191 until 197 when
Septimius Severus fights the civil war with Albinus, which
corresponds to the new timeline we have established."
Tomlin's response to the suggestion that the number 6 (VI) follows LAC's rank of procurator, for a supposed 6 times at that rank, is just as damaging:
"No good. '6 times' procurator is absurd: even 'twice' would be highly unusual. Nor can it be the duration of his office: 'annos' would have been specified, and anyway, the length of tenure is not specified in career inscriptions.
An inscription will either centre each line, or (more usually) will take each line to the end, even if it means breaking words. This is all the draughtsman has done. He has then centred the bottom line for appearance. VVS cannot be an abbreviation for VIVVS, and almost unacceptable as an error.
I attach the relevant entry from AE on the only example I could find on VVS for VIVVS. As you can see, it is not comparable: it is very brief and almost every word is abbreviated.
Martio / v(i)v(u)s fec(it) sib(i) / et Lupo fil(io) / kar(issimo)
AE 1977, 0596"
Professor Lawrence Keppie echoes Tomlin:
"The start of the last line is difficult to read, but VVS seems secure. The stonecutter (or Castus himself) is guilty of overkill, in emphasising his personal involvement: the words IPSE and SIBI aren't both needed. I looked up the combination of these words, and there's only a couple of other examples. So I agree with Roger."
ARGUMENT NO.11 - NOT INCLUDED IN THE PAPER BY MALCOR ET AL, BUT OFFERED LATER AS ADDITIONAL 'PROOF' OF THEIR THEORY - The proc centenario 'formula' on LAC's stone as demonstrating the date of the inscription. This was a final attempt to push LAC's founding of Liburnia to a late period.
In the following links, I showed that PROC CENTENARIO fails to precisely fix the date of the stone. Furthermore, once we accept that this formula occurred in inscriptions earlier than the time stated by Malcor et al, we are forced to acknowledge that the most probable date for the foundation of Liburnia was when Marcus and Lucius reorganized Dalmatia at the onset of the Marcomannic Wars (168-70). This reorganization is specifically mentioned in the sources. No other such alteration of Dalmatia's military or civilian structure is recorded at a later date (as Malcor et al continue to contend).
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