I've often suffered from either/or thinking and that shortcoming has sometimes adversely affected my Arthurian theory.
A perfect example is my rather arbitrary decision to divorce an Arthur son of Sawyl of Ribchester from an Artorius of Armenia. This has actually caused me great consternation. For while research and correspondence with top academics has satisfied me when it comes ARMENIOS being the correct reading for the ARM[...]S lacuna in the L. Artorius inscription, I am also totally infactuated with my identification of Sawyl of Ribchester as Arthur's father.
Why have I deemed this to be such a problem?
Because, so I reasoned, if the Roman name Artorous had been preserved in the North only to crop up there in the Dark Ages, then we would expect to find it at Ribchester ONLY in the event that L. Artorius Castus were present in Britain when the Sarmatians were there. The very same Sarmatians whose veterans settled at Ribchester.
Had Castus been there BEFORE the Sarmatians showed up - which would be the case had he gone to Armenia with Statius Priscus - we could not show a connection between him at Ribchester.
This all seemed very logical.
But... the logic is flawed.
How so?
Because it fails to take into account three important facts.
1) Castus as prefect of the Sixth was based at York.
2) Ribchester had a very close relationship with York. I will examine this relationship in some detail below.
3) A Dalmatian unit was serving at York in the late period. This was a cavalry group serving at Praesidium (according to Professor Roger Tomlin probably the civilian settlement outside the York fort).
For more information on this unit, see
The significance of Dalmatians at York has to do with Castus and Statius Priscus quite possibly being born in Dalmatia, and Castus service and retirement and burial there. The Artorii were present in Salona and a woman from there was actually buried at tge Carvoran fort on Hadrian's Wall, which was also manned by Dalmatian unit.
To return now to Point No. 1...
The following is excerpted from I. A. Richmond's THE SARMATAE, BREMETENNACUM VETERANORUM AND THE REGIO BREMETENNACENSIS ("The Journal of Roman Studies", Vol. 35, Parts 1 and 2 (1945):
"The Roman fort at Ribchester is one of the important strategic centres of Northern Britain, where a Roman road from south to north crossed the river Ribble, while another went eastwards to the legionary fortress at York through the Aire Gap...It is of some importance to recall that the cult of Maponus [found at Ribchester] is one patronized by legionary officers of the Sixth Legion, from which Antoninaus came, and, in particular, by so senior an officer as the praefectus castrorum [a rank held by LAC], since this stamps the cult as one centred in York rather than in the auxiliary forts... 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 shrine and monuments of the regional centre upon the basis of the best conventions that they knew. Indeed, it must be admitted that the policy can hardly have been without direct official inspiration, since it continued over a period of some forty years or more. It is evident that both during their military service and after their settlement in the regio as veterans, the men of the Sarmatian numeri, soldiers of the lowest standing in the army, were subjected to the stead influence of Roman religious culture, always one of the most powerful media of social education in the ancient world."
RIB 583. Dediction to Apollo Maponus and Gordian’s Own Unit of Sarmatian cavalry
In other words, not only was Ribchester geographically close to York, it was subjected to a prolonged and intensive program of assimilation from the latter city. This being so, we can well accept the preservation of the name Artorius in the region, as Roman personal names would certainly have been borrowed by the Sarmatians and, presumably, by any Britons or Romano-Britons who had engaged in intermarriage with the former. We might be justified in going so far as to say that names of prominent military officers who had served at Eboracum would have enjoyed a favored status among the settlers at Bremetennacum.
Yes, all of that is hypothetical. I have found scholars on both sides of the debate as to how cultural identities might have been preserved in units like those of the Dalmatians. Yet we do have some evidence that such units continued to recruit from their homelands long after we might suppose such ties were severed. I have discussed this evidence in earlier blogs.
Right now I feel as if I'm justified in keeping both Artorius of Armenia and Sawyl of Ribchester. A decision along these lines would manifest itself as a sort of grand unifying theory, if my readers will permit.
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