THE ARMORICA OF ROMAN CASTUS AND THE BRITAIN OF SUB-ROMAN ARTHUR

Samlesbury Hall

So, having spent years now determining what the most likely reading for the L. Artorius Castus memorial inscription's ARM[...]S lacuna most likely is 

(see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2025/02/why-armoricos-reading-for-l-artorius.html), what does the result of that quest yield in terms of a possible identification of a historical Arthur?

Well, newly proposed readings (like my ARM.GENTES) have proven to be unfruitful. Most importantly, with the ARMENIOS reading being set aside due to the age of the Castus stone, and ARMORICOS - combined with Dio's account of the 1500 British spearmen who go to Rome under Commodus - coming to the fore, we are once again free to look at Sawyl of Ribchester as Arthur's father.

Why is Ribchester dependent on an ARMORICOS reading as opposed to an ARMENIOS one? Because Ribchester's Roman fort was home to the Sarmatian veterans. For the Arthur name to have been preserved there I would expect Castus to have been remembered by the descendants of those Sarmations in the Dark Ages or at least for the Artorius name to have been passed down in the royal family. If we read Armenia, Castus served in Britain before the Sarmatians were sent there. If Armorica, then the Sarmatians were already there when Castus arrived in Britain.

Only the other day, while looking up something else, I happened to access this old post:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2024/10/illtud-knight-rides-again.html

Taken with the dozens of others I've written on the subject or related matters, there is no doubt in my mind that Uther Pendragon is St. Illtud. The question remains whether Illtud is Arthur's father, or whether Uther, poetically referred to as the Biblical Samuel ( = Welsh Sawyl), became confused with Arthur's real father, a famous northern chieftain named Sawyl.

I will be reconsidering this question in the following days/weeks.  It is not an easy one, as there is much to recommend Illtud (including a possible connection to the Liddington Badbury; see 

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2023/01/illtuds-father-bicanus-and-his-llydaw.html).  What it will ultimately come down to, as always, is where I can best make the case for the theater of the Arthurian battles.