For quite some time now, I've been resisting allowing the reading of ARMORICOS in the L. Artorius Castus inscription. However, after communicating with Dr. John Drinkwater, an expert on Roman Gaul, I decided I needed to revisit the possibility.
The problem, I've only just come to realize, is my reliance on some other authors when it comes to matters of chronology. A good case in point is John McHugh's THE EMPEROR COMMODUS: GOD AND GLADIATOR. In that volume, McHugh plausibly suggests the Deserters' War is already in full swing and that this explains the size of the escort (1500 British troops) that went to Rome to demand the removal of Perennis.
Well, in the first place, as Drinkwater submits, these troops may well have gone to Rome to apologize to the Emperor for the mutinous state of the army in Britain. McHugh's argument is still reasonable that each of the three removed senatorial legates of the British legions had picked 500 spearman from their respective legions to act as a protective force for the delegation.
The problem with McHugh's scenario is that it does not allow us to see ARVERSUS ARMORICOS in the LAC inscription. Why not? Because we are specifically told by Dio that the 1500 British spearman had encountered no resistence on their way to Rome. If they didn't fight anyone, then LAC couldn't claim ADVERSUS ARMORICOS.
But I've since been able to make use of some other studies of the Bellum Desertorum and the Perennis episode - studies in which the dating offered for the events in question is more precise.
For those who want a quick rundown of the relevant source materials, please see what I have pasted at the end of this blog post.
What follows here is culled from
The conflict of the legionaries in Britannia
with Perennis will reach its apogee at the turn of April and May AD
185 when a delegation of 1500 legionaries sent from there reaches
Italy41.
... in summer (turn of July and August) of AD 185, Maternus
decided to attack Argentoratum
Therefore, when the news on the attack by Maternus and
his ‘latrones’ reached Rome – most likely in the form of letters and official
protocol in which the entire event had been described in the chancellery of
the VIII ‘Augusta’ legion – which could have taken place already in August
AD 18550, the Senate, probably at the request of Commodus, adopted a resolution recognising Maternus and his ‘latrones’ as the ‘enemies of the
Roman state’ (hostes publici). After the act of declaring war, the operations
carried out against them became reclassified from those of typically police
nature to a regular ‘war with the deserters’ (bellum desertorum)51.
Maternus, as a deserter from
the Roman army, and his supporting companions (commilitiones), whom he
organised into a great criminal division (manus latronum), were primarily
only deserters and outlaws (latrones) excluded from the boundaries of the
Roman law. However, the scale and audacity of their activities engendered
Commodus’ personal intervention, as the result of which they were recognised
as ‘the enemies of the Roman state’ (hostes publici), and the military operation
of police actions that run against them in AD 185–186/7 was reclassified into
a regular ‘war’ – ‘bellum desertorum’, i.e. a war against deserters3.
What is noticeable immediately here is that a good case can be made for allowing the embassy to Rome by the 1500 British spearman to have occurred just prior to the full outbreak of the Deserters' War.
That fact allows us to retain the 1500 troops for LAC and still employ ADVERSUS ARMORICOS.
How?
By simply suggesting that once Perennis was dead and, presumably, the three senatorial legates reinstated, the force under LAC was only then tasked - before it returned to Britain - with taking on the uprising in Armorica that had been sparked by Maternus' actions. It may be that he and his force was put under Pescennius Niger at Lugudunum. [Remember that Armorica was a large part of the province of Gallia Lugudunensis.] The legates, meanwhile, would have crossed back to Britain and returned to their legionary bases.
As LAC would have been accompanying the legates to Rome on a diplomatic mission, it's unlikely he would have entered anything about this on his stone. For at that point in time he was not a dux put in charge of a military action against an enemy. He would have become dux only when the restored legate of the Sixth Legion put him in charge of the troops being sent against Armorica.
Alternately, he may have been sent from York to join the 1500 spearmen on the Continent and then led them into battle against the Armoricans.
To be honest, I think this a rather elegant solution to our problem of the ARM[...]S lacuna.
SOURCES
Now Pescennius was on very friendly terms with Severus at the time that the latter was governor of the province of Lugdunensis.12 4 For he was sent to apprehend a body of deserters who were then ravaging Gaul in great numbers,13 5 and because he conducted himself in this task with credit, he gained the esteem of Severus, so much so, in fact, that the latter wrote to Commodus about him, and averred that he was a man indispensable to the state.
[https://www.livius.org/sources/content/herodian-s-roman-history/herodian-1.10/ - for Herodian's tale of Maternus]
16 1 The prodigies that occurred in his reign, both those which concerned the state and those which affected Commodus personally, were as follows. A comet appeared. 2 Footprints of the gods were seen in the Forum departing from it. Before the war of the deserters120 the heavens were ablaze.
120 An outbreak in Gaul in 186, headed by a soldier named Maternus, who gathered a band of fellow-soldiers and desperadoes and plundered the country. The Roman troops under Pescennius Niger defeated and scattered them; whereupon, Maternus himself fled to Italy and attempted to assassinate Commodus, but was caught and beheaded; see Herodian, I.10, and Pesc. Nig. iii.4.
Perennis,6 who commanded the Pretorians after Paternus, met his death as the result of a mutiny of the soldiers. For, inasmuch as Commodus had given himself up to chariot-racing and licentiousness and performed scarcely any of the duties pertaining to his office, Perennis was compelled to manage not only the military affairs, but everything else as well, and to stand at the head of the State. 21 The soldiers, accordingly, whenever any matter did not turn out to their satisfaction, laid the blame upon Perennis and were angry with him.
2a The soldiers in Britain chose Priscus, a lieutenant, emperor; but he declined, saying: I am no more an emperor than you are soldiers"
The lieutenants in Britain, accordingly, having been rebuked for their insubordination, — they did not become quiet, in fact, until Pertinax quelled them, — now chose out of their number fifteen hundred javelin men and sent them into Italy. 3 These men had already drawn near to Rome without encountering any resistance, when Commodus met them and asked: "What is the meaning of this, soldiers? What is your purpose in coming?" And when they p91 answered, "We are here because Perennis is plotting against you and plans to make his son emperor," Commodus believed them, especially as Cleander insisted; for this man had often been prevented by Perennis from doing all that he desired, and consequently he hated him bitterly. 4 He accordingly delivered up the prefect to very soldiers whose commander he was, and had not the courage to scorn fifteen hundred men, though he had many times that number of Pretorians. 10 So Perennis was maltreated and struck down by those men, and his wife, his sister, and two sons were also killed. Thus Perennis was slain, though he deserved a far different fate, both on his own account and in the interest of the entire Roman empire, — except in so far as his ambition for office had made him chiefly responsible for the ruin of his colleague Paternus. For privately he never strove in the least for either fame or wealth, but lived a most incorruptible and temperate life; and as for Commodus and his imperial office, he guarded them in complete security.
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