THE 'DALMATIAN CONNECTION' AND L. ARTORIUS CASTUS' EXPEDITION AGAINST ARMENIOS

Aequum of Julius Severus

Risinum of Statius Priscus (?) Near Salonae of the Artorii

Pituntium of Lucius Artorius Castus 

PART ONE

In past blog posts, I pointed out that the man who appears to have hand-picked Statius Priscus was Julius Severus.  And that, in turn, Statius Priscus may well have hand-picked L. Artorius Castus.  It is well known that Severus was born in Aequum, Dalmatia.  Statius could have been born in either Italy or Risinum, Dalmatia.  A case has been made for Italy based upon one family connection by marriage, but Professor Roger Tomlin has examined this argument and still sees no reason why Statius could not belong to the Statii attested in Risinum.  

The same debate continues as to where L. Artorius Castus was born. He could have been born in Italy or in Salona, Dalmatia, where the Artorii are attested.  But it is rather a moot point whether Castus was born in Dalmatia or not, as he could well have "founded" the family there when he was posted as procurator of Liburnia and retired to his estate in Pituntium.  

The question we must ask ourselves is whether these apparent Dalmation connections contribute significantly to the argument that Castus went to Armenia with the British governor Statius Priscus, just as it seems Statius Priscus had earlier gone to the East with Julius Severus.

I think they do.  

Professor Roger Tomlin wrote this to me about Priscus and Severus:

"I haven't read Alföldy's Konsulat und Senatorenstandwhich suggests (p. 314) a Dalmatian origin for Statius Priscus, but I suggest you check on this.

Birley, arguably, is over-reacting from his suggestion that Priscus had a British origin, but I don't see that the Luceria inscription proves any more than that Priscus married his daughter to the first Fufidius Pollio. Considering they were generals in adjoining provinces, this isn't a surprise. It was the family of Fufidius Pollio which came from Luceria, and remained there. No need for Priscus to limit his choice of a son-in-law to his own home town.

Statius Priscus could have come from Dalmatia despite the Camodeca inscription – which (I think) only shows that his daughter married into the Luceria family. SP had a very wide-ranging career, and must have made many contacts in the course of it, besides his spell at Rome as a senior senator.

And Birley is right to suggest that Severus may have chosen Priscus because they were both of Dalmatian origin."

The alternate reading for the fragmentary ARM[...]S on the Castus memorial stone is, of course, ARMORICOS.  But while I have tried my best to justify the reading, Professor Tomlin's wise assessment of the proposed Armorica keeps coming back to haunt me:

"I am not happy with 'Armoricans' as referring to the Deserters' War. Our sources are poor, but they insist it was spread across Gaul and Spain, and finished in Italy. If he was putting down an internal revolt, surely he would have used a term like 'hostes', 'defectores', 'rebelles', or even 'desertores'.

Or he could have simply said 'against Maternus.'

This is a possible scenario, of course, but it involves assumptions that are not backed by the text – that Castus' opponents were nationalists, not 'deserters', and that they did not ravage (the whole of) Gaul.

If Castus had campaigned only in Armorica against a much wider-ranging opponent, than he might have said 'in Armorica', but he would have been perverse to call his opponent 'the Armoricans'.

Two footloose Germans or a couple fleeing Britain might have joined them – it wouldn't then mean he was fighting against Germans or Britons. Your scenario only admits of fighting 'in Armorica'.

We can only balance probabilities. And Armenia is heavier than Armorica.

You would have to suppose that Armorica was 'garrisoned', centuries after conquest, by soldiers who were 'Armoricans'. And go against Herodian's narrative, who treats Maternus' followers as latrones – no hint of a 'nationalist' revolt. They ranged all over Gaul, recruiting convicts, and yet you must suppose that Castus applied a narrowly regional label to them, as 'Armoricans'."

This reasoning I find flawlessly convincing. Which means, of course, that we are once again back to a Castus who was in Britain prior to the arrival there of the 5,500 Sarmatians sent to the province in 175 A.D. by Marcus Aurelius.  

I would add in passing that there is nothing on the memorial stone to link the ADVERSUS mission with the 1,500 spearmen Cassius Dio says went to Rome from Britain to demand the execution of the Praetorian Prefect Perennis.  It is tempting to identify these two events, as Castus took three legionary detachments against ARM[...]S, and 1,500 men can be nicely divided into three legionary vexillations of 500 each.  But, again, there is simply no way to show from Castus' inscription that he had anything to do with the delegation to Rome.  

PART TWO

How can we reconcile a L. Artorius Castus in Britain before the Sarmatians with a sub-Roman Arthur born at the Ribchester fort of the Sarmatian veterans?  For I'm fairly confident that the Welsh tradition does preserve (albeit in a form distorted by the usual centuries-long legend-building process) a portrait of a war leader descended from Sawyl Benisel.

Granted, the name Arthur had plenty of time between the 2nd century and the 5th to find its way around Northern Britain.  If the name had proven popular, ostensibly because the Roman officer who was the prefect of the Sixth at York had gained renown by taking Britiah troops to fight in Armenia and had become a procurator, it cropping up at Ribchester may have nothing to do with the Sarmatians at all.  Instead, it would merely be related to the relationship that long existed between York and Ribchester.  We know from the famous Maponus stone at Ribchester, for example, that it was a centurion from the Sixth who commanded a numerus of Sarmatians. 

In "The Sarmatae, Bremetennacvm Veteranorvm and the Regio Bremetennacensis" by I. A. Richmond (The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 35, Parts 1 and 2, 1945, pp. 15-29, Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies), the author emphasizes the influence York had on the fort of the Sarmatian veterans at Ribchester:

"At Bremetennacum, on the other hand, we are in contact with a special settlement and garrison composed of those very barbarians whose failure to absorb Roman culture is considered to have sapped and weakened the Roman military virtue. It is thus particularly significant for official policy that successive commandants of the Ribchester fort and settlement, men of education and social standing, both could and did draw generously upon the resources of craftsmanship and religious allegory available or current at the York headquarters in order to establish the shrines and monuments of the regional centre upon the basis of the best conventions that they knew.

It is of some importance to recall that the cult of Maponus is one, patronized by legionary officers of the Sixth legion, from which Antonianus came, and, in particular, by so senior an officer as the praefectus castrorum, since this stamps the cult as one centred in York rather than in the auxiliary forts."  

Thus we can readily understand how a name that had achieved significant recognition at York might have, eventually, been transferred to the settlement at Ribchester, as the latter would always have been looking to York as the model for its own desired "Roman-ness."  This being the case, we do not have to insist on Castus personally having had anything whatsoever to do with the Sarmatians.

I feel this is a perfectly acceptable compromise, and one which will allow us to retain ARMENIOS for the reading the the Castus stone, and to have the Dark Age Arthur situated at Ribchester.