L. Artorius Castus, Armenia and the Seven-Year Gap

MEMORY IS A FRAGILE THING. WHEN I WROTE THIS PIECE, I'D TOTALLY FORGOTTEN THAT YEARS AGO I HAD EASILY ACCOUNTED FOR THE TIME-GAP BETWEEN THE END OF THE ARMENIAN WAR IN 163 AD AND THE FOUNDATION OF LIBURNIA C. 168-170. 

JUST THE OTHER DAY I REFRESHED MY MEMORY BY TALKING WITH PROFESSOR ROGER TOMLIN AND LOOKING BACK THROUGH THE PRIMARY SOURCES. I BECAME AWARE ONCE AGAIN THAT STATIUS PRISCUS WAS THE MAN IN CHARGE OF BUILDING THE NEW ARMENIAN CAPITAL AFTER THE ROMANS DESTROYED THE OLD ONE. THE ROMANS ALSO INSTALLED GARRISONS IN FORTS OR CAMPS IN THE KINGDOM. 

BUILDING A NEW CITY DOES NOT HAPPEN OVERNIGHT. IN FACT, IT ALMOST CERTAINLY TOOK YEARS. 

MORE IMPORTANTLY, WHILE SOLDIERS COULD MENTION THEIR NAMES, TITLES AND UNIT AFFILIATIONS ON BUILDING STONES, THIS KIND IF INFORMATION DOES NOT APPEAR ON MEMORIAL STONES. SO A CASTUS REMAINING IN ARMENIA FOR A PROTRACTED PERIOD OF TIME UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES WOULD STILL BE A PREFECT AND NOTHING MORE. HIS RANK DID NOT CHANGE UNTIL HE WAS GIVEN THE PROCURATORSHIP AND NOTHING THAT HAPPENED IN ARMENIA AFTER THE COMPLETION OF HIS DUX FUNCTION IN BATTLE THERE WOULD APPEAR ON HIS MEMORIAL STONE.

WE CANNOT ACCOUNT FOR THE TIME GAP BY HAVING CASTUS RETURN TO BRITAIN C. 163 AND REMAINING THERE AS PREFECT FOR SEVERAL YEARS.

TO QUOTE FROM TOMLIN (PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE):

"Legionaries would be builders as well as fighting troops. And Castus would not specify how long he was in Armenia, or what he was doing there, apart from duffing up Armenians."

ARMENIA, THEN, STILL REMAINS THE BEST CANDIDATE FOR THE ARM[...]S LACUNA.

           Dumyat Hill of the Maeatae

             Myot Hill of the Maeatae

In accepting ARMENIOS as the reading for the ARM[...]S lacuna in the L. Artorius Castus inscription, we are faced with what has always appeared to me to be an insurmountable problem:

What to do with the seven years that separate the conclusion of the Armenian War in 163 AD and the apparent founding of Liburnia province in 170?

We have no intruding rank, post or action in the inscription between dux and procurator. This suggests an uninterrupted transition from one to the other. And, indeed, the Liburnian procuratorship looks very much like a post with which Castus was rewarded for service performed as dux.

We could, I suppose, postulate that Castus was building, garrisoning or what have you in Armenia for several years. That nothing he did there, however, warranted mention on his stone. Or that he had simply escorted his surviving troops back to Britain in 163 and continued to be prefect of the Sixth for several years before becoming procurator.

Problem is the average tenure of a legionary prefect (see Brian Dobson's "The Significance of the Centurion and 'Primipilaris' in the Roman Army and Administration", p. 414) was 3 years.  Had Castus proven so valuable as a prefect as to have been appointed dux, it is difficult to imagine him continuing in the role of prefect for 7 years. Instead, we must assume some time spent already as prefect when he became dux, and then perhaps an accelerated track to the procuratorship due to exceptional performance as commander of the legionary force.

With my newly proposed reading of ARMATAS GENTES for the Castus lacuna, the 7 year gap problem goes away.  In this scenario, Castus leads a force after the legate of the Sixth falls on the Wall. Under Ulpius Marcellus a great victory is won. Castus is rewarded with Liburnia. The mutiny happens later. 

This is the only time it seems to work, for had Castus replaced a legate due to Perennis's official decree he would have put that on his stone.

The gentes or tribes causing difficulty for Castus may well have been the same Maeatae confederation who we know was giving Rome fits at the time. I have before very tentatively suggested that the Miathi (= Maeatae) associated with the Dark Age Arthur of Dalriada could be a confused folk memory of Castus's campaign against the same tribal group. This possibility may seem far-fetched, but seems a bit much for coincidence only.

The Caledonii are found acting in concert with the Miathi during the reign of Septimius Severus.

It has always seemed to me that if we are to make a case for the survival of the Roman period name Artorius in north Britain and to have it resurface in the Dark Age as Arthur, Castus would have had to do something especially noteworthy IN NORTH BRITAIN. No one there would care a wit about him leaving to perform his dux mission in remote Armenia.

The same holds true, incidentally, for a Castus serving as dux in Armorica. My identification of the HB battle sites proves Arthur was in the North. While a Dumnonian Arthur (who is a product of later relocation to the Celtic Fringe) might well owe his name to a famous Roman officer who operated militarily in Armorica, such a venture is unlikely to have had any significant impact on Northern heroic tradition.

Given all that, can we really opt for ARMATAS GENTES on the Castus stone?