Caracalla Coin Showing a Trajectu9s
Caracalla Coin Celebrating the Emperor's Victory Over the Britons
PRELIMINARY DISCLAIMER:
Before I treat of the influence my proposed ARM.GENTES reading for the ARM[...]S lacuna of the Castus inscription has had on my interpretation of the HISTORIA BRITTONUM Arthur, I feel it's necessary to first state emphatically what I DO NOT subscribe to: the theory espoused by Dr. Linda A. Malcor and her colleagues, Antonio Trinchese and Alessandro Faggiani.
The Malcor Theory relies upon two and only two fallacies to prove that L. Artorius Castus was a governor of Briton under Commodus.
The Malcor Triad accomplishes this by making the following claims:
1) the "dux" of the Castus inscription equates to him being an equestrian governor of Britain
and
2) as there is a gap in our historical record from 187-191 for Roman governors in Britain, it naturally follows from 1) that Castus should be used to plug the gap.
Now, no one other than the Malcor Triad and a few fringe Arthurianists, sone of a neopagan persuasian, adhere to the governor reading for the stone. All the top Latin epigraphers and Roman military historians read it for what it says, i.e. a prefect of the Sixth legion was given a temporary command of legionary troops brought against ARM[...]S.
When you listen to Malcor talk about the dux portion of the inscription, she will invariably refer to it as the dux of then egions or the dux of Britain. In other words, she intentionally omits the connected ADVERSUS clause.
Furthermore, Faggiano will throw at you examples of dux that are supposed to prove that the word meant governor in the 2nd century. None of his examples, upon critical examination, reveal this to be true. Yet despite this fact, the Malcor Triad will continue to insist that the best scholarship, which shows conclusively that the meaning they want for dux is not to be found until Diocletian, is wrong. They deny that even given how important his later procuratorship was to him (he bothered to cite his pay grade and his Emperor-bestowed right of the sword) he surely would have claimed a governorship of Britain with pro legato or agens vice legati.
As for making Castus the governor of 187-191, that is merely a historical application of the God of the Gaps argument. The latter can most simply be defined thusly:
"The God-of-the-gaps argument is a particular kind of argument known as an argument from ignorance. This is an informal fallacy. It takes the following structure:
Cause A is insufficient to produce Effect E.
Therefore, Cause B must have produced Effect E.
This is obviously fallacious. Just because we know Cause A isn’t sufficient to produce the effect, that doesn’t mean we know Cause B did it. We would need independent reasons to believe Cause B is capable of producing the effect. But that important premise is missing in this form of argumentation."
[Source: https://www.str.org/w/why-intelligent-design-isn-t-a-god-of-the-gaps-argument#:~:text=Argument%20Based%20on%20Ignorance,a%20misrepresentation%20of%20their%20argument.]
We can write out their argument as a logical formula:
WE HAVE A GAP IN THE GOVERNORS' LIST FOR BRITAIN IN 187-191
CASTUS WAS A GOVERNOR ( = DUX; A FALSE PREMISE) IN THE MID-ANTONINE PERIOD (TOMLIN) OR IN THE SEVERAN PERIOD (SALWAY)
THEREFORE, CASTUS WAS THE GOVERNOR OF 187-191 (THE CONCLUSION IS A LOGICAL FALLACY, NOT ONLY BECAUSE PREMISE 2 IS FALSE, BUT BECAUSE ANYONE WE HAPPEN NOT TO HAVE A RECORD OF COULD ALSO HAVE BEEN GOVERNOR OR ACTING GOVERNOR AT THIS TIME)
The Malcor Triad cannot tell us what event in the 187-191 gap would have necessitated Castus' use of three entire legions. Our sources are quite clear that only two major counter-offensives occurred in Britain during the time period we are considering: that under the governor Ulpius Marcellus and the later Severan campaigns. Neither event took place in 187-191.
The Malcor Triad also cannot adequately explain Castus' Liburnian procuratorship with ius gladii following 187-191. To begin, going from being governor for several years of one of the largest provinces in the empire with a massive army to a procuratorship of tiny Liburnia seems like a demotion. Second, scholars are united in their opinion that the enhanced procurator rank indicates an emergency situation for the Empire. There were only two such: the onset of the Marcomannic Wars and the barbarian invasions under Caracalla. No emergency of a similar nature is recorded after 187-191.
The remainder of the Malcor Theory consists of wildly imaginative reconstructions of Castus' service in Britain that are, frankly, more at home in a historical (fiction) novel than they are in the academic arena.
Taken as a whole, though, the Malcor Theory is then used to justiify the Malcor Triad's unshakable position that Artorius was the original "King Arthur."
Ironically, as a result of my own investigations, I now find that I agree with them on this last point - but on this point alone.
I just happen to agree for an entirely different set of reasons.
***
Arthur's Battles (Excepting Camlan and Badon) Overlaid Upon Simon Elliott's Map of the Severan Campaigns in Northern Britain
I've spent the better part of three decades trying to prove, to the best of my ability, and without practicing any degree of intellectual dishonesty, and while being totally transparent as to my methods and failings, that the Arthur of the HISTORIA BRITTONUM and the ANNALES CAMBRIAE was an actual historical personage whose floruit was the early to mid 6th century A.D. During much of that time, I was either ignorant of the Roman officer L. Artorius Castus or did not think him particularly important.
Well, after studying Castus himself now, pretty steadily, since 2019, and after having dispensed with several Arthurian "theories", I dared to propose an entirely new reading for the ARM[...]S lacuna of the Castus memorial inscription. Up to that point, I had vacillated between the two readings accepted as possible by the majority of Latin epigraphers and Roman military historians: ARMENIOS and ARMORICOS. Although I was the first person to show that ARMORICOS could fit on the stone with allowable ligatures, I ultimately found several reasons to reject that reading.
I also argued vociferously for years that vexillations of legions were implied in the inscription. And this is still possible (as Robert Saxer supposedly had over 40 examples of this occurring on inscriptions). But if we were going to stick with Castus as the man whose Artorius name was remembered in Northern Britain and passed down to the Dark Age Arthur, it was difficult - if not impossible - to explain why Artorius would have been remembered had he not done something deemed quite remarkable in Britain. Although his name may well have been linked to the Cumbric word for bear, and this would in part lend a sort of mythological power to the name, who in Northern Britain would care about an officer who went to fight in Armenia? Or even, for the sake of argument, in Armorica?
No, it seemed to me that if Castus had left his Artorius name to subsequent generations of Britons, he must have performed great deeds in Britain. That belief (for that is all it is, really) led me to explore optional readings for the ARM[...]S lacuna. And the only such reading I could come up with, after several weeks of futile effort, was ARM(ATAS) GENTES.
This reading has been accepted by the academic community as plausible. It would translate best in this context as 'armed tribes'. My follow-up question to the experts had to do with whether it was possible for Castus to have actually led three entire legions north in a major campaign, rather than merely taking detachments with him. The answer was yes (even from Professor Roger Tomlin, who prefers ARMENIOS for the lacuna). That meant I could read the relevant line literally.
Given that scholars would have Castus be dux between the middle of the Antonine period to the Severan period, there are only two major campaigns in Northern Britain to consider. The first was fought by the governor Ulpius Marcellus under Commodus and the second by Severus and his sons. If we accept the consensus view that Castus' Liburnian procuratorship with the right of the sword must have happened at a time of emergency, then only the action under Severus makes sense, as right after that his son Caracalla faced barbarian invasion in Europe for the first time since the onset of the Marcomannic Wars under Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.
As everything now seemed to work, I was faced with an unconfortable truth: my identification of the Arthurian battles of the HB and the AC fit the campaigns of Severus to an uncanny degree. In fact, I could no longer look at the two of them and consider them mere coincidence. So that you can see what I mean by this, kindly take a look at the map I have prepared above.
Of course, I did have Badon and Camlan in the way. Badon was not really a problem. For a very long time people have tended to view Badon as a tag-on for Arthur. If the actual victor of the battle was unknown, the famous Arthur might well have become attached to it. While various candidates for Badon have been proposed over the years, I was able to show that the AC seemed to point to the Liddington Badbury (although linguistically Badon is the normal British reflex of English Bathum), the Welsh tale 'The Dream of Rhonabwy' opted for Buxton of Bathamgate. Neither site made sense for an Arthur's whose other battles were all at or north of York.
Camlan seemed insurmountable, until I realized that the Welsh localization of the battle in NW Wales was most likely a relocation of the battle of the Dalriadan Artur against the Miathi. See
In my effort to constrain a Dark Age Arthur's martial activity to the Scottish Lowlands at the very least, I had found it necessary to resort to an unproven, totally hypothetical relocation of the Caledonian Wood from the Highlands to the Lowlands. I now believe this to be an unjustifiable modification of the tradition.
John Koch on the Caledones in his CELTIC CULTURE: A HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA:
The Geography of Ptolemy (2nd century ad) places
the Kalhdonioi in the vicinity of the Great Glen and
Loch Ness. The group name survives in three Gaelic
place-names from Perthshire, central Scotland: Dùn
Chaillean/Dunkeld ‘Fort of the Calidones’ (princeps Dúin
Chaillden Annals of Ulster 873, Dún Callden Book of
Deer), Ro-hallion ‘Rath of the Calidones’ near Dunkeld,
and Sìdh Chaillean/Schiehallion ‘Síd of the Calidones’.
Silva Calidonia ‘the Caledonian forest’ is mentioned
by Pliny (Natural History 4.102) and Calidonia silva by
Martianus Capella (6.666); Ptolemy likewise notes a
Kalhdonioj drumòj. Old Welsh cat Coit Celidon ‘battle
of the forest of the Calidones’, glossed ‘silva Celidonis’,
occurs in the 9th-century Welsh Latin Historia
Brittonum (§56) as Arthur’s seventh battle. In the
early Welsh poetry connected with the wild man
and prophet Myrddin, Coed Celyddon is the place
to which Myrddin flees for refuge and isolation after
the battle of Arfderydd. Since the battle site (Armterid
Annales Cambriae 573, now Arthuret) is only six miles
north of Hadrian’s Wall, it is sometimes assumed
that the Welsh Coed Celyddon must be further south
than the ancient Calidones. But this is not certain since
the Myrddin legend includes fantastic elements; therefore
the long-range flight of the battle-deranged bard
is not unthinkable, and the Welsh understanding of
the relative position of these northern places may have
been vague. In Culhwch ac Olwen, Kyleªon or
Kelyªon Wledic are apparently variant spellings of the
same character’s name, which might originally have
meant ‘sovereign of Caledonia’ or something similar.
Similarly, the Bassas and Tribruit battles seemed to belong to a different Arthur. If not to Artur of Dalriada, then to someone else who was wrongly associated with the HB Arthur in tradition. I found myself making excuses for these "embarrassing" battle locations. I "allowed" them to be "intrusions" into the battle list of a Dark Age Arthur.
But subsequent research led me in an entirely new direction:
Suddenly, it looked as if we weren't talking about intrusions at all. Instead, the HB Arthur was Artorius, dredged up from the 3rd century and dressed in the clothing of a Dark Age savior.
But why was I so surprised? The Welsh had done the same with Ambrosius Aurelianus, a man who (as traces of tradition in the HB prove) was actually a fourth century personage.
I know that many of my readers will object to this revelation. How, they will ask, can we possibly accept the idea that the folk memory of L. Artorius Castus is what we have in the legend of the great 6th century champion who fought and staved off the Saxons?
Well, I can only attempt to answer that in these terms:
We often mistake sources like the HB for historical documents. The HB is a loose collection of folk traditions disguised as history. When we go to Galfridian material, we are even worse off: literary invention has taken over.
We must also consider the authors (and many copiers) of these early "sources" of history. They were Christian monks. When we read Gildas, for example, we must bear in mind that these same men created hagiography. The acts of St. Germanus in Wales sit alongside the Dinas Emrys folktale in the HB.
In othe words, everything they wrote was meant to be of value in promulgating and preserving their own faith. Those who readily lied or exaggerated in order to reveal the Higher Truth had no problem with generating Church propaganda or didactic stories or miracles worked by saints. Where such bias exists, nothing produced can be trusted.
Monkish scribes would have no problem adapting folklore to fit their purposes. If one of those purposes was to find a hero from the past who could be converted into a Christian victor over the pagan barbarians, well, they would not have hesitated to do that.
What to do, though, about the Dalriadan Arthurs, and the Dyfed Arthur after them? I've always said that it was strange the only Arthurs after the HB chap belonged to Irish-founded dynasties in Britain.
I can I solve this riddle at last.
The Britons of the Scottish Lowlands would have bore the brunt of the Maeatae and Caledonii incursion. L. Artorius Castus with his three legions and his perceived bear name drove back this threat and then tackled the enemy in their Highland homes.
As a result, Artorius achieved a high degree of fame and the story of his deeds was passed down among the Britons of Strathclyde. When the Dalriadan king Aedan (or Conaing?) took a British wife, the name they landed upon to express their much desired "Britishness" was Arthur.
It is not a requirement that the great hero Arthur flourished only a generation before Artur of Dalriada. We need only accept the very real possibility that stories of Artorius were still current among the Britons at the time of Artur's father.
If we also need to account for Arthur of Dumnonia, we need only remind ourselves that their were two Dumnonii tribes in Britain. One was in the SW. The other one was the tribe of the Strathclyde kingdom from which the Dalriadans obtained the name Arthur.
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