Armenia Vs. Armorica
As dating of the L. Artorius Castus memorial stone has settled on a time period that supports Castus having led legionary detachments from Britain to either Armorica or Armenia, I naturally find different scholars who are lining up in favor of one or the other possibility. The following correspondence is from Professor John Bodel of Brown University:
"I'm afraid there is nothing paleographically distinctive enough to decide between the two proposed dates of 160s for Armenia or 180s for the Deserters' War -- either would fit well enough for a stone in the 190s, especially in a provincial context, where norms were different everywhere. For what it is worth, your historical arguments in favor of the Deserters' War make good sense to me."
[Note that I had also provided the Professor with the evidence in support of Armenia.]
This follows on the heels of Dr. Benet Salway declaring that either Armenia or Armorica would work.
What remains the most striking fact arguing in favor of Armorica for Castus is Cassius Dio's account of the 1500 British spearmen who went to Rome. The number cited happens to match perfectly what we would expect for Castus' vexillations, which were drawn from the three British legions, i.e. a fairly typical 500 men taken from each legion.
There are only two other "facts" holding us back from immediately accepting Dio's described mission with that of Castus's: a possible conflict with a certain Priscus' mission in the period around the time of the Deserters' War and the difficulty in accounting for the regional term Armorica being used to designate the deserters under Maternus. I will once again address both of these issues in turn.
A. Priscus with Germanic, not British troops
I had dispensed with the idea that it was not LAC who commanded these spearmen, but instead the Priscus who was offered the Imperial title by troops in Britain:
The point is that no one who had removed Priscus from Britain because of an attempt to make him Emperor would have afterwards put Britons under his command on the Continent. Tomlin himself declared:
"What you say about the other Priscus is fair enough. He had demonstrated his loyalty as far as British troops were concerned, and since usurpers were expected any way to show initial hesitation ('le réfus de pouvoir'), I can well imagine the authorities would have removed him, just to be on the safe side."
The fragmentary evidence of the relevant inscriptions and what we know of the involvement of Germany and Gaul in the Deserters' War points instead to Priscus having led German troops. [1] If this is so, it frees us up to once more consider LAC as the officer who led the 1500 spearmen to Rome.
[1]
The following examples are known of GERMANICARUM and BRITANNICARUM in the inscriptions:
5 confirmed instances of Germanicarum
1 possible instance of Britannicarum (the Priscus stone, ironically!)
And here is the reconstruction of Priscus' career as prepared by Professor Roger Tomlin:
"Our basic problem, as you know, is whether we can pull all these inscriptions together and refer them to the same man – (1) Titus Caunius Priscus, legate of III Augusta who is about to become consul (but we don't know when); (2) the legate of III Augusta called ]CO LEG[, who is in post under Commodus; (3) the consul of Commodus in c.191 who is called ]VNIO ... [...]CO. Identifying (3) with (2) depends on seeing his latest command as III Augusta, not II Italica (as in Birley p. 261, following Gregori and Alföldy). From what I can see of the stone, this is possible, and better suits his titulature.
If you do identify the three, you get a long and interesting senatorial career crowned by the consulship at the end of Commodus' reign. In ascending order:
legate of VI Victrix (but bear in mind that this is a restoration – we only know for sure that it was a legion with P F in its titulature)
legate of V Macedonica
field-commander of vexillations drawn from a provincial army ending in –NNICARVM , which may be reconstructed as the 'British' legions. However, the first N is doubtful and this could be 'Germanicarum' instead.
legate of III Augusta (which depends on a re-reading of the Rome inscription)
consul, c. 191
If this is seen as the career of Caunius Priscus, which I think is reasonable (but not certain), then you get a tight chronology if you try to fit it to the second-rate literary record.
Priscus is legate of VI Victrix in 184, when Commodus becomes Britannicus and the British army tries to proclaim the legate Priscus. He is promoted for his loyalty, and also to get him out of Britain – becoming legate of V Macedonica. As such, he is made acting-commander of a field force composed of British or Germanic troops.
He is successful in this command – i.e. he kills Maternus – and as a reward gets the plum post of III Augusta which is a provincial governorship as well and naturally leads to the consulship.
I think you can squeeze it all together, since his legionary command in Britain would have ended with his refusal to become a usurper, and he could have commanded the vexillations during his next post, the command of V Macedonica.
I leave it to you to decide whether the vexillations were 'British' or "German' or to be identified with the 1500 spearmen who killed Perennis, or whether LAC should be associated with the latter."
Conclusion: Coming from Macedonia, Priscus is much more likely to have commanded Germanic troops, simply from a geographical standpoint. And I still maintain that he never would have been put in command of British troops on the Continent after being removed from Britain because the troops there tried to make him Emperor. While it is assumed Priscus' troops were employed against deserters, we really don't know what they were being used for. But we do know the Deserters' War affected Germany as well as Gaul.
B. An Armorican Uprising and the Deserters of Maternus
Professor Roger Tomlin is of the opinion that ARMORICOS would not have been used to indicate a military action of legionary vexillations against Maternus' deserters. However, our sources state that the origin point of the Deserters' War was the province of Gallia Lugdunensis, a region that contained Armorica.
Tomlin insists that other terms would have been used for the deserters.
Still, we can imagine a situation in which the deserters initial success sparked an open rebellion of the tribes in Armorica and that it was to this event that Castus was responding.
As for the mission to Rome, this looks like (as has been proposed before by other writers) the escorting of the displaced senators, who when they reached the capital made their complaint against Perennis. While it has been suggested that the size of the escort was so unusually large because it had to pass through the region afflicted by the Deserters' War, if we adopt this view we cannot account for the ADVERSUS ARM[...]S on the Castus stone. It seems much more likely that one of two things happened:
1) after successfully concluding their action in Armorica, Castus and his troops continued on to Rome with the senators
or
2) the historical account is somewhat confused, mistakenly identifying a smaller honor guard sent out from the larger force for the express purpose of safely returning the senators to Rome.
Conclusion: There is no reason, so far as I can see, why ARMORICOS could not be on Castus's stone. Certainly, it is difficult to ignore/discount the mission of the 1500 when it so perfectly matches the description of the three legionary detachments on Castus's memorial. Once again, we have no other such account of British legionary vexillations going anywhere in the time period we are considering. To me, this has always seemed just too much of a coincidence.
One major problem about equating the mission of the 1500 spearmen with that of Castus: Dio insists that the British soldiers did not meet any resistance on their way to Rome. This points to the group being an escort or honor guard for the displaced senators I discussed above. There is no mention of action in Gaul by the 1500.
Of course, what this all comes down to, really, is whatever someone wishes to believe is true. As both Armenia and Armoricos are possibilities, and both can be defended with good arguments and even some evidence, I cannot myself lay claim to having uncovered any kind of certain answer to the problem posed by the fragmentary ARM[...]S on the Castus inscription.
I can only go with what my "gut" tells me is right. And my gut won't let go of the "problem of Liburnia" - a problem I am returning to in my next blog post.
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