WHY ACCEPTING 'ADVERSUS ARMORICOS' FOR THE ARTORIUS INSCRIPTION IS SO EASY - AND SO HARD

Map Showing Gallia Lugdunensis and Armorica (Between the Red Lines) in the Time of Commodus

Armorica Between the Seine and the Loire

There has never really been a problem in seeing ARMORICOS in the ARM[...]S of the L. Artorius Castus inscription. From early on various important Roman scholars showed the Armorica could well have been involved in the Deserters' War during the reign of Commodus

 (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-case-for-origin-of-deserters-war-in.html).  Armorica was a part of Gallia Lugdunensis, and that was one of the regions where the deserters were active and had to be suppressed.  We know this from the Augustan History:

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Pescennius_Niger*.html#note12

3 Et Pescennius quidem Severo eo tempore quo Lugdunensem provinciam regebat amicissimus fuit; 4 nam ipse missus erat ad comprehendendos desertores, qui innumeri Gallias tunc vexabant. 5 in quo officio quod se honeste gessit, iucundissimus fuit Severo, ita ut de eo ad Commodum Septimius referret, adserens necessarium rei publicae virum. 

Now Pescennius was on very friendly terms with Severus at the time that the latter was governor of the province of Lugdunensis.​12 4 For he was sent to apprehend a body of deserters who were then ravaging Gaul in great numbers,​13 5 and because he conducted himself in this task with credit, he gained the esteem of Severus, so much so, in fact, that the latter wrote to Commodus about him, and averred that he was a man indispensable to the state.

Now, sure, we might expect Castus to have said something like "against Maternus" on his stone, or even against DEFECTORES, REBELLES, LATRONES, HOSTES PVBLICOS, PRAEDONES or DESERTORES "of X" (with X being a place). But if LAC's mission were confined to Armorica, where a general uprising composed of multiple factions was taking place, he might easily forgive him for defaulting to the regional name alone.

When it comes to choosing between Armenia and Armoricos, distance is a factor.  Even Roger Tomlin, who tentatively/provisionally prefers Armenia admitted that  "Yes, Armenia is an awfully long way to send reinforcements from Britain."

Armorica was right across the Channel from Britain, while Armenia is very far away indeed.  My analysis of British vexillations on the Continent and beyond (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2022/12/vexillations-sent-from-britain-to-fight.html) revealed that other than a proposed Armenia expedition, the two other most distant postings for British vexillations were Carnuntum in Austria and Sirmium in Serbia.   These two postings are only roughly half as far from Britain as Armenia.  

Where the trouble exists is equating a possible Armorican mission by Castus with the episode found in Cassius Dio of the 1,500 soldiers who supposedly went to Rome to demand the execution of Perennis.  Time and again scholars have tried to account for how the mission of the 1,500 could actually have happened. Some of them, quite frankly, choose to see it as fiction. Professor Roger Tomlin himself does not much care for the story, stressing that

"I find the whole story difficult. Here are 1500 men, a tenth of the legionary establishment in Britain, walking half-way across Europe to complain of how their generals have been appointed. It is mutiny for one thing, and who chooses their leader? And will he be a senior equestrian himself? And how do you march 1500 men all that way without official warrant? Did they simply seize food and billets every time they stopped for the night?"

Perhaps the best discussion of the episode is found in a note to the following link

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/43597869.pdf. Note the various explanations the cited scholars give in order to make the mission of the 1,500 a more credible story.

140 Brunt, ‘The fall of Perennis’, 177 sees in the progress of the 1,500 ‘yet another

premonition of the breakdown of military discipline in the third century’. Unconvincing are

the proposals by Grosso, Commodo, 187, that the soldiers were allowed to proceed, exactly

because they were aiming to bring down Perennis, and by De Ranieri, ‘La gestione

politica’, 415-6 who argues that Commodus himself had sent for the troops, because he

wanted reliable soldiers to counterbalance Perennis’ praetorians. Surely there were loyal

soldiers closer to Italy - or Commodus’ position had become extremely weak.

I myself suggested a new way of looking at the Perennis affair

(https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2023/02/reconciling-l-artorius-castus.html).  Simply put, an honor guard/escort was detached from the vexillations LAC brought over and it was that escort that went to Rome.  Or, alternately, a delegation had been sent to Rome at the same time as the larger force went to Armorica, and the two thus became confused and conflated by Dio or his source.  

The reference in Dio's story to the "deputies of the army" (see https://www.jstor.org/stable/638138) as the ones who sent the 1,500 may be the source of the original confusion.  I would make these out to be the representatives of the delegation to Rome, and not the party responsible for sending LAC to Armorica. Commodus himself, according to Herodian, was the one who ordered provinces to send forces against Maternus:

"When he was informed of these developments, Commodus, in a towering rage, sent threatening dispatches to the governors of the provinces involved, charging them with negligence and ordering them to raise an army to oppose the bandits." (https://www.livius.org/sources/content/herodian-s-roman-history/herodian-1.10)

Regardless how we choose to make sense of the mission of the 1,500, ARM[...]S in this context can still not mean anything other than ARMORICOS.  The recently proposed ARMATOS does not work, as it fails to tell us who LAC was fighting and even where he was fighting them.  'Armed men', left without context, is meaningless and is not something LAC would ever have put on his stone.

So where does this leave us?  Well, while we can still opt for ARMENIOS on the LAC stone, and hold that three legionary detachments went with LAC with Statius Priscus when that Roman governor went to Armenia [1], or we stick with ARMORICOS.  In the first case, we have no evidence other than perhaps the fragmentary stone itself that a large legionary force went with Priscus to Armenia.  In the second case, we seem to have in the story of the 1,500 spearmen who went to Rome a literary version of what was carved on the memorial stone.  During the time period we are considering, we have no other literary reference to a mission of three British legionary vexillations going anywhere.  

It has occurred to me that despite my best efforts to arrive at something more concrete, and to thereby eliminate one or the other candidate, whether we choose to accept ARMORICOS or ARMENIOS comes down to matter of belief.  Being who I am, I must settle for ARMORICOS, as Dio's story appears to me to be our required independent evidence for the dux mission of L. Artorius Castus.

[1]  

The phrase ADVERSUS ARMENIOS is actually found in Tacitus:

ANNALS 13:37:

At Tiridates super proprias clientelas ope Vologaesi fratris adiutus, non furtim iam, sed palam bello infensare Armeniam, quosque fidos nobis rebatur, depopulari, et si copiae contra ducerentur, eludere hucque et illuc volitans plura fama quam pugna exterrere. igitur Corbulo, quaesito diu proelio frustra habitus et exemplo hostium circumferre bellum coactus, dispertit vires, ut legati praefectique diversos locos pariter invaderent. simul regem Antiochum monet proximas sibi praefecturas petere. nam Pharasmanes interfecto filio Radamisto quasi proditore, quo fidem in nos testaretur, vetus adversus Armenios odium promptius exercebat. tuncque primum inlecti Moschi, gens ante alias socia Romanis, avia Armeniae incursavit. ita consilia Tiridati in contrarium vertebant, mittebatque oratores, qui suo Parthorumque nomine expostularent, cur datis nuper obsidibus redintegrataque amicitia quae novis quoque beneficiis locum aperiret, vetere Armeniae possessione depelleretur. ideo nondum ipsum Volgaesen commotum, quia causa quam vi agere mallent; sin perstaretur in bello, non defore Arsacidis virtutem fortunamque saepius iam clade Romana expertam. ad ea Corbulo, satis comperto Volgaesen defectione Hyrcaniae attineri, suadet Tiridati precibus Caesarem adgredi: posse illi regnum stabile et res incruentas contingere, si omissa spe longinqua et sera praesentem potioremque sequeretur.