My Growing Fear that Uther Pendragon IS Ambrosius: A Reconsideration of Gwythur/Victor in the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN

Trier Amphitheater

Having written this piece -

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-fly-in-ointment-for-my-uther-at.html

and this one -

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/08/campus-elleti-and-home-for-ambrosius-on.html

- a growing fear has been nagging at me that Uther may actually be Ambrosius.  First, there was the presence of Cysteint/Constantius as one of Uther's warriors in the PA GUR, placed at Elei near the Campus Elleti of Ambrosius.  While Geoffrey of Monmouths's Constans, brother of Ambrosius, seems based on Constans II, Constans I had a brother named Constantius.  

Cysteint has now made me think again about the Victor who is found in the Uther Pendragon elegy.  

Victor is the name of the son of Magnus Maximus, with whom St. Ambrose, son of the Gallic prefect of the same name, had dealings with.  And Victor was slain at Trier, the capital of the Gallic prefecture and birthplace of St. Ambrose.

From the MAWRNAT VTHYR PEN:

Neur ordyfneis-i waet am Wythur,

I was used to blood[shed] around Gwythur,

With the note on the line from translator/editor Marged Haycock:

11 am Wythur On the personal name Gwythur, see §15.31. Am ‘for, around’,

perhaps here meaning that the speaker was in Gwythur’s entourage.

St. Ambrose 

Born c. 339

Augusta Treverorum/Trier, Gallia Belgica, Roman Empire

Died 4 April 397 

Mediolanum/Milan, Italia, Western Roman Empire

From Wikipedia on Magnus Maximus:

"In 387, Maximus managed to force emperor Valentinian II out of Milan. Valentinian fled to Theodosius I, and the two subsequently invaded from the east; their armies, led by Richomeres and other generals, campaigned against Maximus in July–August 388. Maximus was defeated in the Battle of Poetovio,[18][19] and retreated to Aquileia. Meanwhile, the Franks under Marcomer had taken the opportunity to invade northern Gaul, at the same time further weakening Maximus's position.

Andragathius, magister equitum of Maximus and the killer of Emperor Gratian, was defeated near Siscia, while Maximus's brother, Marcellinus, fell in battle at Poetovio.[20] Maximus surrendered in Aquileia, and although he pleaded for mercy was executed.[how?] The Senate passed a decree of Damnatio memoriae against him. However, his mother and at least two daughters were spared.[21] Theodosius's trusted general Arbogast strangled Maximus's son, Victor, at Trier in the fall of the same year.[22]"

So, if Uther is, in fact, Ambrosius of the 4th century, and he is presented to us as the only viable father for the famous Arthur, what are we to do?

Well, possibly throw our hands up and accept that Uther Pendragon as an entity separate from Ambrosius may have been utilized as a "filler" character to span the presumed time gap between Ambrosius and Arthur.

Or we may do something else, i.e. propose a later British namesake of the earlier Ambrosius.  This has been done before, of course, with little or no success.  I will myself return to the notion in future research.  

The start of such a reappraisal of the identity of Arthur's father may well begin with the possible presence of Ambrosius the Gallic prefect with Constans I in Britain, for which please see

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/05/why-ambrosius-aurelianus-was-put-in.html

Stay tuned!

NOTE:

Culhwch and Olwen places a Victor in the far North of Britain in a purely legendary context.  And there was a Dark Age Withur of Leon in Brittany.  Leon was in the westernmost part of Domnonee (see John Koch in CELTIC CULTURE: A HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA).