ARTHUR AND THE MIATHI, ARTORIUS AND THE MAEATAE?

In the Irish sources on Dark Age Dalriada, Arthur son (or grandson) of Aedan mac Gabran is said to die in two different places. Various attempts to explain this difficulty have been attempted. Probably the best is by John Bannerman in his STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF DALRIADA:

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https://archive.org/details/studiesinhistory00john/page/n11/mode/1up?q=Miathi

What I found the most interesting about an Arthur fighting the Miathi is that my best identification of the HB's Arthur's Bassas put the battle site at Dunipace. My identification was based on place-name expert John Reid's etymology for Dunipace as hill or fort of the bas/"shallow" and the presence nearby of Arthur's Oven. The oven was probably a Roman building which took on Arthur's name in folklore.

Dunipace itself is in the territory of the Miathi, the Classical period Maeatae. In fact, it is very close to Myot Hill, one of the forts of the Miathi.

Thus in my earlier Arthurian writings I tentatively suggested a link between Arthur of Dalriada in the Miathi lands and the HB Arthur at Dunipace. My thinking then was that Bassas in the HB might represent an intrusion into the battle list from Arthur of Dalriada's martial exploits. Such conflation of the various Arthur's has long been suspected.

But the other day, as I continued working on my newly proposed ARM(ATAS) GENTES reading for the ARM[...]S lacuna in the L. Artorius Castus inscription, something else occurred to me. 

If we adopt (here for the sake of argument) the "armed tribes" reading, these can only be northern tribes in Britain, as Castus is prefect of the Sixth Legion at York leading legionary detachments would have been fighting such. Otherwise, he would have described the foe as being outside Britain. The Sixth was always northern-focused and, indeed, its primary task was to guard the boundary with the North. This probable means all of his own Sixth Legion plus generous vexillations drawn from the other two were utilized.

Given the consensus dating of the stone by all the experts I have consulted with, we are looking at the very tail-end of the Antonine period or, more probably, the Severan. I'm most impressed by Dr. Benet Salway's analysis based on the large number of ligatures in the inscription, which he says is a hallmark of Severan epigraphy.

Two major northern campaigns were fought under Commodus and Severus. The first was spear-headed by Commodus' governor Ulpius Marcellus after a general (probably legate of the Sixth - not the governor, according to Anthony Birley) was killed on the Wall by the tribes. This action was claimed a victory by Commodus on his coins. Yet immediately following there occurred a serious mutiny and Ulpius was recalled. The mutiny was not supposedly quelled until Pertinax's governorship, although he himself barely escaped with his life in the process.

The second, and much larger campaign took place under Severus. The emperor's governor, Virius Lupus, had tried unsuccessfully to tame the Maeatae. Instead, he ended up buying them off. But they did not remain peaceful for long. They attacked to the South again, this time in league with another tribal confederation, the Caledonii. Severus was forced to go to Britain himself and gave orders for the northern tribes to be utterly destroyed. Although his desire for genocide was not accomplished, it is likely a great deal of damage was inflicted upon the tribes. 

What I thought to myself was simply this: wouldn't it be an astonishing coincidence had Artorius fought the Maeatae, the same Maeatae (Miathi) Arthur of Dalriada and/or Arthur of the HB were said to have fought? [Never mind the HB's Caledonian Wood battle and the Caledonii.]

And then I dared go one step further: what if it weren't a coincidence?

What if the folk memory of the genocidal war Artorius engaged in against armed tribes had so impressed itself upon the traditions of the Northern British that later Arthurs were mistakenly, through easily garbled oral history and heroic songs, given a battle against the Maeatae/Miathi that had originally belonged to Artorius?

While this notion is impossible to prove, of course, it is not so hard to believe. It seems, at the very least, somewhat credible.

Now, it is time for me to make an important confession.  I've been working in the Castus inscription pretty steadily since 2019. It has become more than a bit of an obsession. But while I concentrated on the two generally accepted readings - ARMORICOS (since I showed it would fit on the memorial stone) and ARMENIOS - I have always harbored a secret bias for a designation that would allow us to put Castus in northern Britain. 

I feel this way for this reason: if we accept the premise that the Artorius name was preserved in the North only to resurface in the 5th-6th centuries as British Arthur, then it follows that the original bearer of that name must have done something in the North that gave his name currency among the populace. It would have had to be something truly noteworthy. Had Castus been just another Roman officer who had his glory days elsewhere, and who retired in Dalmatia (where there are several Artorii), the idea that his name was preserved in Britain is pretty unsustainable.

Granted, everything rides on that stated premise. And that premise will be rejected by many. It may make others squirm. Both parties would doubtless prefer that the name Arthur is just a name and that its cropping up in Dark Age Britain is no more special than Tom, Dick or Harry popping up at a much later date. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Still, I would add another premise to the first one. Is it unreasonable to assume that had an Artorius been instrumental in the first Hammer of the Scots' (Simon Elliot's term for Severus) exceptionally brutal campaign against the Northern tribes that he might have been remembered in the North well enough for his name to have been preserved among the ruling elite south of the Wall?

I, personally, do not find this unreasonable at all.