COMING SOON: Arthur and Beranburh/Barbury: A Critical Reexamination of the Possible Significance of the Bear's Fort in Wiltshire

BICOIR, PETUIR, PEDR/PETRUS AND THE PETRIANA: AN ARGUMENT FOR "THE ARTHUR" AT UXELLODUNUM/STANWIX

Stanwix Roman Fort

In my book THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY, I made a case for the original Arthur of heroic legend being based at Stanwix in Cumbria, the Uxellodunum/Petriana of the Classical sources.  This was a Roman fort housing the largest cavalry unit in all of Britain and, according to the best historians and archaeologists of Roman Britain, the place acted as the command center of Hadrian's Wall, answering directly to York.

I had hinted at the possibility that the Arthur of Dyfed, son of Pedr (= Roman/Latin Petrus), had been given his name in honor of an Arthur who had ruled at Petriana. The name is used of Uxellodunum/Stanwix because the unit garrisoned there was called the Ala Petriana, named for the initial head of the unit, Titus Pomponius Petra. 

Furthermore, I suggested - very tentatively - that the Arthur Penuchel mentioned in a corrupt Triad as son of Eliffer/Eleutherius (an honorific given to Constantine the Great of York fame in ancient Greek sources) was an oblique reference to Arthur having ruled from Uxellodunum.  Uxello- becomes in Welsh uchel.  Dr. Simon Rodway of The University of Wales, a noted expert in the Welsh language, recently informed me that Uxellodunum in Welsh would have become *Uchelddin.  However, Welsh place-names show a shift in the order of components, so that one would expect a Din Uchel or Dinas Uchel.  Even more importantly, I cited the example of Ceredig Wledig of Strathclyde, who in the early Irish sources is called Coroticus 'regis Aloo/regem Aloo', or 'King of the Rock.' Aloo is here an abbreviated form of Alclud, the Rock of the Clyde, the capital of the early Strathclyde kingdom.  If this place-name could be abbreviated in such a way, so could Uxellodunum. 

The question I next asked myself was this: WHY DID PEDR OR PETRUS OF DYFED NAME HIS SON ARTHUR?  Clearly, he must have had a reason for doing so.  Could it not be that the famous Arthur of PETRIANA was the model for this Arthur of Dyfed?

As anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of Latin knows, the relationship of Petra and Petrus is extremely close.  Here are the relevant entries from the Lewis and Short Dictionary at Perseus:

pē^tra , ae, f., = πέτρα,

I.a rock, a crag, stone (pure Lat. saxum; cf.: rupes, scopulus): petrarum genera sunt duo, quorum alterum naturale saxum prominens in mare; “alterum manufactum ut docet Aelius Gallus: Petra est, qui locus dextrā ac sinistrā fornicem expletur usque ad libramentum summi fornicis,” Fest. p. 206 Müll. (of the latter signif. there is no other example known): petris ingentibus tecta, Enn. ap. Fest. 1. 1. (Ann. v. 366); Sen. Herc. Oet. 804: “aquam de petrā produxit,” Vulg. Isa. 48, 21 et saep.: “gaviae in petris nidificant,” Plin. 10, 32, 48, § 91: “alga, quae juxta terram in petris nascitur,” id. 32, 6, 22, § 66; 34, 12, 29, § 117; Curt. 7, 11, 1.

πέτρα , Ion. and Ep. πέτρη , ἡ,

A.rock; freq. of cliffs, ledges, etc. by the sea, “λισσὴ αἰπεῖά τε εἰς ἅλα πέτρη” Od.3.293, cf. 4.501, etc.; χῶρος λεῖος πετράων free from rocks, of a beach, 5.443 ; “π. ἠλίβατος . . ἁλὸς ἐγγὺς ἐοῦσα” Il.15.618, etc.; χοιρὰς π. Pi.P.10.52; also, rocky peak or ridge, αἰγίλιψ π. Il.9.15, etc.; “ἠλίβατος” 16.35, etc.; λιττὰς π. Corinn.Supp.1.30, cf.A.Supp.796 (lyr.); π. Λενκάς, ?ωλενίη, etc., Od.24.11, Il.11.757, etc.; π. σύνδρομοι, Συμπληγάδες, Pi.P.4.209, E.Med.1264(lyr.); πρὸς πέτραις ὑψηλοκρήμνοις, of Caucasus, A.Pr.4, cf. 31, 56, al.; π. Δελφίς, π. δίλοφος, of Parnassus, S.OT464(lyr.), Ant.1126(lyr.); “π. Κωρυκίς” A.Eu.22; π. Κεκροπία, of the Acropolis, E.Ion936.

2. π. γλαφυρή a hollow rock, i.e. a cave, Il.2.88, cf. 4.107; σπέος κοιλῇ ὑπὸ π. Hes. Th.301; δίστομος π. cave in the rock with a double entrance, S.Ph.16, cf. 937; κατηρεφεῖς αὐτῇ τῇ π. Pl.Criti.116b; “π. ἀντρώδης” X.An.4.3.11; “τόπος κύκλῳ πέτραις περιεχόμενος” IG42(1).122.21 (Epid.); ἕως τῆς π. down to virgin rock, PCair.Zen.172.14 (iii B.C.), OGI672 (Egypt, i A. D.), cf. Ev.Matt.16.18.

3. mass of rock or boulder, Od.9.243, 484, Hes.Th.675 ; “πέτρας κυλινδομένα φλόξ” Pi.P.1.23 ; “ἐκυλίνδουν πέτρας” X.An.4.2.20, cf. Plb.3.53.4.

4. stone as material, π. λαρτία, Τηΐα, SIG581.97 (Crete, iii/ii B. C.), 996.13 (Smyrna, i A. D.): distd. from πέτρος (q. v.), which is v.l. in X.l.c.; πέτρᾳ shd. be read in S.Ph.272 ; the distn. is minimized by Gal.12.194.

II. prov., οὐκ ἀπὸ δρυὸς οὐδ᾽ ἀπὸ πέτρης, etc. (v. δρῦς); as a symbol of firmness, “ὁ δ᾽ ἐστάθη ἠΰτε π. ἔμπεδον” Od.17.463; of hard-heartedness, “ἐκ πέτρας εἰργασμένος” A.Pr.244; “ἁλίαν π. ἢ κῦμα λιταῖς ὢς ἱκετεύων” E.Andr. 537 (anap.); cf. “πέτρος” 1.2 . (Written πε-τε-ρα in a text with musical accompaniment, Pae.Delph.5.)

πέτρος , ὁ (in later Poets ἡ, AP7.274 (Honest.), 479 (Theodorid.)),

A.stone (distd. from πέτρα, q. v.); in Hom., used by warriors, “λάζετο πέτρον μάρμαρον ὀκριόεντα” Il.16.734 ; “βαλὼν μυλοειδέϊ πέτρῳ” 7.270, cf. 20.288, E.Andr.1128 (never in Od.); “ἔδικε πέτρῳ” Pi.O.10(11).72; “ἄγαλμ᾽ Ἀΐδα ξεστὸν π. ἔμβαλον στέρνῳ” Id.N.10.67; “νιφάδι γογγύλων πέτρων” A.Fr.199.7; “ἐκ χερῶν πέτροισιν ἠράσσοντο” Id.Pers.460; “λευσθῆναι πέτροις” S.OC435; “πέτρους ἐπεκυλίνδουν” X.HG3.5.20, etc.; ἐν πέτροισι πέτρον ἐκτρίβων, to produce fire, S.Ph.296; of a boulder forming a landmark, Id.OC1595; “τόνδ᾽ ἀνέθηκα π. ἀειράμενος” IG42(1).125 (Epid., iii B. C.).

2. prov., πάντα κινῆσαι πέτρον 'leave no stone unturned', E.Heracl.1002, cf. Pl.Lg.843a; of imperturbability, “καὶ γὰρ ἂν πέτρου φύσιν σύ γ᾽ ὀργάνειας” S.OT334, cf. E.Med.28.

II. a kind of reed, Peripl.M.Rubr.65.—The usual Prose word is λίθος.

Now, we can subscribe to the view that the author of the HISTORIA BRITTONUM, in Chapter 56, simply chose, through ignorance or design, to associate his Arthur with Arthur son of Bicoir of Kintyre/Cind Tyre.  The problem for us with this identification is that the dates for Arthur son of Petr/Petuir/Bicoir are way too late for the date of the Arthur found in the Welsh Annals.  This Arthur of Dyfed must have been named after an earlier, more famous Arthur. Otherwise, we simply cannot account for the popularity of the name in the following generation, and the dates of the Welsh Annals must be wholly discounted.  We would have to accept that the famous Arthur was a mere forgery, foisted upon us by a propagandist faction. Certainly a possibility, but a hard pill to swallow, nonetheless.

It is far more reasonable to see in the Arthur of the Welsh Annals a war-leader who ruled from Uxellodunum/Petriana.  His fame became so widespread that Pedr of Dyfed named his son after him.

This is the only way we can reconcile the Arthur of the HISTORIA BRITTONUM'S Chapter 56 with the Arthur of the Welsh Annals, so far as I can tell. We can have a real Arthur of the North, descended from Arthwys of the Irthing Valley, himself related to the ruler of the York of Lucius Artorius Castus, or we can have a make-believe Arthur whose name can be traced to no one at all.

Old Notes on Arthur Son of Bicoir as THE ARTHUR (A Repost)

http://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2016/12/old-notes-on-arthur-son-of-bicoir-as.html

OCTHA OF THE NORTH AND IDA OF BERNICIA: THE "BRACKETING" OF THE HISTORIA BRITTONUM'S ARTHURIAN BATTLES (Revised Substantially Since Original Posting)

Whitley Castle Roman Fort, Kirkhaugh, Northumberland

In the HISTORIA BRITTONUM attributed to the monk Nennius, the Arthurian battles are neatly inserted between the rise of Octha, son of Hengist, to the Kentish throne, and mention of the reign of Ida, King of Bernicia.  I used this "chronological fix" in my argument for the identification of Cerdic of Wessex with Arthur, as Cerdic's floruit is similarly situated in the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE (with Aesc son of Hengist substituted for Octha).

But there is an interesting correlation between an Arthur of the North and the career of Octha, as this is told in the HB.

According to Chapter 38 of that source, Vortigern directed Hengist to grant Octha lands in the north "about the Wall that is called Guaul." This is generally thought to be a reference to Hadrian's Wall (although it could also be a memory of the Antonine; cf. Gwawl son of Clud, i.e. Clyde, in the MABINOGION). Octha is said to sail around Scotland, raiding as he goes, "as far as the borders of the Picts."

It is in Chapter 56 - the Arthurian section of the HB - which has Octha come down from the North and assume the kingship in Kent after the passing of Hengist.

On Octha's coming from the North... the Latin of the HB says "transivit de sinistrali parte Brittaniae..." Sinistrali is not "north", but rather "left."  However, as Dr. Ranko Matasovic has reminded us in his ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF PROTO-CELTIC:

*ufo-kliyo- ‘north’ [Noun]
GOID: OIr. fochla [yo n]
W: gogledd [m]
BRET:MoBret. gwalez ‘northern wind’
SEE: *kliyo- ‘left’
ETYM: The motivation of the development from ‘left’ to ‘north’ lies in the fact that the north is on the left side when one is facing the east (the rising sun).
REF: GPC II: 1436.

Scholars have written a great deal on the confusion that exists over some of the early successors of Hengist in Kent. It is not my intent here to rehash this debate, other than to say that there was an Ocga, an illegitimate son of Ida of Bernicia, who may either be the prototype for Octha or with whom Octha of Kent may have become conflated.   I feel the important thing to note is that even if the tradition of Octha in the North is spurious, we happen to find the Arthurian battles bracketed by two references to English military action in Britain beyond Hadrian's Wall.  

A warrior named Ebissa is Octha's companion in the North.  The name may be Celtic in origin, containing the element for 'horse' (*epo-s), although Eobba has been suggested.  Hengist and Horsa are English names meaning 'stallion' and 'horse', respectively.  During the Roman period, Whitley Castle, Kirkhaugh, Northumberland, was called Epiacum, 'place (or property) of *Epios'.  The Latin form of Epios was Eppius.  [See Rivet and Smith's THE PLACE-NAMES OF ROMAN BRITAIN.] Of course, Kintyre, the home of the Scottish Dalriadan dynasty, was anciently referred to as Epidium, the land of the Epidii or 'Horse-people.'  Arthur son of Aedan (or of Conaing) was of Dalriada and Arthur son of Bicoir "the Britain" killed the Irish king Mongan in or near Kintyre.  Long ago I suggested that Kent, called Centlond in the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE, may have been wrongly related to Cind Tyre in the TIGERNACH ANNAL entry on Arthur son of Bicoir.

[NOTE:  Bicoir may be a slightly corrupt form of Petuir, found for Pedr of Dyfed, father of an Arthur.  I long ago recognized that /B/ and /P/ commonly substitute for each other, while /c/ and /t/ can be mistaken for each other in some MS. hands. There is no problem with the broad vowel o or u or vice-versa. Otherwise, we might postulate a connection of Bicoir to Beccurus, a name found on a Dark Age memorial stone in NW Wales.]

I would add this from the eDIL:

Echde
Cite this: eDIL s.v. Echde or dil.ie/19515
npr., m.: Aird Echdi, erca Echdi ZCP ix 191 . Ériu ii 32 . A. Echdai, Corm. Y 585 . Acc. to Meyer, Wortk. 41 , Aird E.¤ corresponds to Ptolemy's Ἐπίδιον Ἄκρον. Thurneysen, Ir. Held. 433 , considers that the npr. was extracted from the place-name.

This is a personal name, which has been thought to derive from Ard Echde, the Mull of Kintyre.  It is a Gaelic rendering of Ptolemy's Epidion Akron.  While I can't make a linguistic case for Octha coming from Echde or something similar (e.g. attested Irish names such as Echtaigh, Echtaich, Echtach), the pairing of the P-Celtic Ebissa with a Q-Celtic name containing the horse element would not be surprising.  In fact, as with Hengist and Horsa, it is to be expected. The initial /O/ could be due to contamination through contact with the several O- names found in the Bernician royal pedigree.  Or an Irish Eoch- formation could have lost the initial /E/. But, again, this is only speculation.

Incidentally, the father of the Erc who founded Dalriada was named Eochaid (possibly 'knight', 'horseman'). Kintyre is the home of the Mac Eacherns or Mac Each-thighearna, 'Son of Horse-lord.'

The emphasis on the North in Chapter 56 of the HB surely must have some bearing on the Arthurian content.  If Arthur did not belong in the North, why are his exploits heralded along with those of the English Octha beyond Hadrian's Wall and with the reign of Ida of Bernicia from Bamburgh?  If we look at Arthur's military career from this perspective, it is difficult if not impossible to default to Cerdic of Wessex/Ceredig son of Cunedda as the favored candidate for a historical dux erat bellorum.

WHAT'S IN A NAME? ARTHUR/ARTORIUS AND THE LOCATION OF THE SUB-ROMAN MILITARY LEADER

Many students of Arthuriana, amateur and professional, have delved into the "mystery" of the Arthur name, only to find out what has long been suspected or known: it comes from the Roman/Latin Artorius.

Another point being made about this name is, however, not anywhere near as convincing.  For we have been assuming all along that the Artorius was preserved among the British because it was made famous by the camp prefect of that name at York. We know about him only because of the chance find of some fragmentary inscriptions.  

A related assumption has been that the name would have been passed down among a royal family that traced its descent from the sub-Roman rulers of York.  In other words, the famous Dark Age Arthur must belong somewhere in the North and not in the South.

The second assumption ignores two possibilities.  First, that there may well have been another famous Roman Artorius elsewhere in Britain for whom no record is extant.  Or, second, Artorius of York may have been so famous in Britain that the reuse of his name need not be restricted to the North.  If a royal family in the South knew of him as well, then they might have borrowed the name for one of their own princely sons.  Especially if a) bear-names were already present in their pedigree b) they worshiped a bear deity or c) they had a semi-divine ancestor with a bear-name.

For a couple of decades now, I've been looking for "respectable" historical Arthurian candidates.  But in all this time, I've only managed to find two valid contenders.  

One must be sought in the Irthing ("Little Bear") Valley between Cumbria and Northumbria.  This is the most probable location of Arthwys, the 'man of the Arth', an eponym like the Glewys of Wales (from Glevensis, 'man of Glevum/Gloucester').  The river valley contains the Camboglanna Roman fort and the sub-Roman hall at Birdoswald.  Not too many miles to the west is the Aballava/Avalana (Avalon?) Roman fort.  The son of this Arthwys is called Ceidio, a hypocoristic form of a name which almost certainly would have conveyed a meaning identical to the "dux erat bellorum" descriptor applied to Arthur in Nennius. Most of the battles from the HISTORIA BRITTONUM list can be found running north and south of Hadrian's Wall along the Roman road called Dere Street.  This arrangement of Arthur's martial activity strongly suggests that Dere Street was the frontier zone between the British and the English.  This Arthur may well have gotten his name from the claimed connection of his family with that of York.  Any Irish blood (necessary to account for the subsequent Arthurs, all of whom belong to Irish-descended dynasties in Britain) would have to derive from the Dalriadans, whose founder Fergus Mor is present in the relevant genealogies.  These genealogies, of course, are not entirely reliable.  They were doubtless manipulated and there are some authorities who believe they are outright fictions. In my book THE ARTHUR OF HISTORY, I successfully showed that a line of descent was often used to demonstrate a relationship between neighboring kingdoms or traditional tribal territories.

The second candidate was discussed in great detail in my second book, THE BEAR KING.  While the idea has been around forever that Cerdic (the ealdorman = dux erat bellorum?) of the Gewissei might be Arthur, it was not until I was able to make a very strong argument in favor of Cerdic = Ceredig son of Cunedda that it occurred to me the notion may be correct.  Ceredig was founder of a kingdom that embraced the Arth or "Bear" River, and his immediate descendants had a predilection for Arto- or 'bear' names. It didn't take much to recognize this "coincidence" and to propose that Arthur/Artorius was a decknamen used to replace an earlier Irish or British 'bear-king' title or name.  The Arthurian battles of the HB seemed to be susceptible to comparative analysis with the battles of Cerdic and other Gewissei leaders as these were found arranged in annalistic form in the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.  A few other stray hints seemed to lend weight to the thesis (e.g. that the name Arthur provided the impetus for the story of the lame son of Elafius in the VITA of St. Germanus of Auxerre). The weakness (or strength, depending on how one looks at this!) of the Cerdic/Ceredig = Arthur theory is that one must accept all the Arthurian battles of the HB as Welsh attempts to translate the place-names supplied by the ASC or to substitute for them approximate Welsh place-names.  If this were done, and the name of Ceredig/Cerdic dropped in favor of Arthur, we must ask, simply, "WHY?"  As the HB was written in NW Wales (where Cunedda and his sons - including Ceredig - had settled, and from whom all the prevailing princely houses ultimately traced their origins), a propagandist motive is likely present. Cerdic/Ceredig was an Irishman or Hiberno-British mercenary who fought with the English against British enemies of the High King of Wales.  Arthur, on the other hand, was represented as being a thoroughly British champion who fought against the English.  A name-change, then, might have been in order, and the battles of the ASC were cleverly disguised so that they did not resemble those supplied by an early English source document.

Given these two candidates, which is the real Arthur?

My hope was that the question could be decided by properly identifying Uther Pendragon.  Yet even this accomplishment proved unfruitful, for Uther was none other than St. Illtud and Illtud was not Arthur's father!  He was only made Arthur's father by Geoffrey of Monmouth or his source. Uther himself was confused (accidentally or intentionally) with the mil uathmar of the North, a name conjured in the Irish Compert Mongan to account for a corrupt form/spelling of the Degsastan/Dawston place-name in Liddesdale. Ironically, Liddesdale is said to have been ruled over by Gwenddolau (perhaps a place-name, 'White Dales') son of Ceidio son of Arthwys.

My very cautious interpretation of all this is as follows: the Welsh needed a counterpart to Cerdic of the Gewissei, reputed founder of the English kingdom of Wessex.  The Northern Arthur was at hand, perhaps with a list of battle victories.  Or these victories may have been at least in part fabricated (or borrowed from other Northern heroes, like Urien of Rheged, who is also said to have fought at Brewyn/Breguoin/Bremenium, and perhaps the later Arthur of Dalriada) to balance out those of the Gewissei.  

An alternative reading is not nearly as attractive, but cannot be easily dismissed: Cerdic, seen as an English hero, was converted into a purely British hero by changing his name (or giving him his other name/title) and being supplied with a list a battle sites derived from a Welsh rendering of the Gewissei sites. 

Until I uncover more evidence - or develop a better argument - this is as far as I can go in my surmises.  

  

Stefan Zimmer's THE NAME OF ARTHUR (apologies for some format irregularities; this was converted from a pdf)

JCeltL, 13 (2009), 131–6
The Name of Arthur – A New Etymology
Stefan Zimmer
Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
Abstract
The name of Arthur, the mythical war-leader and ideal king, probably referring to a second-century Roman commander in Britain, still lacks an etymology convincing in every detail. This short note reviews earlier proposals and presents a new explanation. Welsh Arthur < Latin Artōrius is the Latinized form of a Celtic patronym *Arto-rīg-i̯os, a derivative of *Arto-rīχs = Old Irish Art-rí.
Even in the modern, globalized world, the name of King Arthur is popular in many circles, and exploited in various kinds of media. Medieval tales relating his own adventures and more often those of his knights are perhaps better known today than in the Middle Ages. The origin of his name is still a puzzle, though many proposals have been made. The following is intended to clarify the discussion and to attempt a substantial step towards a deeper understanding of the case.
As I have discussed in a previous publication (Zimmer 2006, with earlier references), the name of ‘King Arthur’ is most probably that of a well-known historical figure, that is, the Roman general Lucius Artorius Castus, probably a native of Dalmatia, and buried in Podstrana near Strobeč, not far from Split. His career is succinctly reviewed in the (unfortunately undated, as usual) epitaph CIL III/Suppl. 2, nr. 12791; cf. also III/1, no. 1919 + III/Suppl. 1, no. 8513. Among other deeds, he served as commander (praefectus castrorum) of the Legio VI Victrix in York, and later as leader (dux) of British legions fighting in Aremorica in the year 184. His fame must have lived on among his veterans and their descendants, so that the legendary dux bellorum of the British kings fighting against the Anglo-Saxons in the fifth and sixth centuries was soon named Arthur after that prominent Roman soldier.
1. The name of Arthur is therefore intimately linked with Latin Artorius. This is a common name in Roman inscriptions. The exact number of attestations cannot be established: RE names 10 or 11 men
132 Stefan Zimmer
called Artorius, plus one Artoria; the epigraphical databank in Eichstätt (www.manfredclauss.de) has many more. Two features are noteworthy: Artorius is nearly1 exclusively used as a nomen gentile, never as a praenomen or cognomen, and it is often used by liberti, liberated former captives (slaves).
The following formal possibilites for explaining the name may be considered:2
1.1. Artorius as a genuine Latin formation may belong to the word family of ars ‘art, skill, craftmanship’, and be a derivative of artus, -ūs (masculine substantive) ‘structure, joints’, or, less likely, from artus (adjective) ‘structured, tight’. Artorius might have been a substantivized adjective meaning ‘joiner’ (not necessarily in the restricted sense of the modern English word).
1.2. Artorius might be an epichoric name from Dalmatia. But we can hardly inquire further because next to nothing is known about the ancient languages of the region. A few names of ethnic groups, such as Liburni and Illyrii, together with some personal names are attested. They are mostly isolated and have not been connected to known languages.
1.3. The third possibility is to take Artorius as an originally Celtic name, Latinized rather early. After all, Celts were present in the region very early. In northern Italy, Celtic invaders arrived in the sixth and fifth centuries BC; they reached the northern coast of the Adratic by the fourth century at the latest. All these Celts underwent rapid Romanization: by the end of the republic, Celtic was no longer spoken there. Furthermore, the many liberti called Artorius may have been captives from wars against the Cisapline Gauls (or from some similar circumstances).
1.3.1. If Artorius is Latinzed Celtic, the root etymology is salient. Celtic *artos is the word for ‘bear’, well attested since antiquity. Practically all the names of the big predators figure in Indo-European onomastics. The ‘bear’ is found in many Celtic names (see e.g. Delamarre 2007: 27). Simple names like Artos, Artus,3 Irish Art; derivatives such as patronyms, e.g. Galatian Artiknos, and hypocoristica of the type Artillus, Artilla. A fine example of the latter has been found in Trier (CIL XIII/1.1, no. 3909): HIC QUIESCIT IN PACE URSULA . . . ARTULA MATER TIT(ULUM) POSUIT. Mother and daughter bear the same name, the mother still in Celtic, the daughter already in the Roman tongue. This is typical for the
The Name of Arthur 133
language switch implied in Romanization throughout the empire.4 ‘Bear’ is also found in the ‘noblest’ type of Indo-European proper names, nominal compounds, cf. Comartio-rix ‘king of [men] connected with (= comparable to ?) bears’, or Artebudz (Ptuj, Slovenia), which may be a late form of *Arto-buððos ‘having a bear’s penis’ (according to Eichner et al. 1994). There are a number of Insular Celtic names obviously continuing Old Celtic formations:
Old Irish Artbe = Old Welsh Artbeu = Old Breton Arthbiu, all < Old Celtic *Arto-biu̯o- ‘quick as a bear’;
Old Irish Artgal = Old Welsh Arthgal, Middle Welsh Arthal, < *Arto-galno-, possibly ‘having the vigour of / vigorous like a bear’;
Old Irish Artrí < *Arto-rīχs ‘king of bears / bear-like king’, besides Old Welsh and Old Breton Arthmail, Middle Welsh Arthuael, Middle Breton Arzmail, Modern Breton Armel < *Arto-maglos ‘prince of / among bears’ or ‘bear-like prince’.
In all these names, ‘bear’ may mean ‘prince’ or ‘warrior’, but may also refer to the real animal, to a totem figure, or to a godhead. After all, a Celtic goddess Artio is well attested, from Muri (near Bern in Switzerland) – see Figure 1 – and from Daun (CIL 4203), Stockstadt (CIL XIII 11789), and Weilerbach (Luxembourg) (CIL XIII 4113).5
2. Recently, Ch. Gwinn (apud Delamarre 2003: 56) has proposed to understand Artorius directly as a Latinized version of *Arto-rīχs. This cannot be excluded categorically, but is highly unlikely. The Romans used to treat all the many Celtic names in -rīχs, well known at least since Caesar’s commentaries on his Gaulish wars, like their own word rex, regis because the close relation of the two lexemes (in fact, their etymological identity) was obvious to them. So, a Celtic *Arto-rīχs should automatically appear in a Latin context as *Artorix – but it never does.6
3. Up to now, the word-formation of Artorius has not been explained satisfactorily. With due caution, I propose to understand Artorius – exclusively used as gentilicium as mentioned above – as the Latinized version of a Celtic patronym *Arto-rīg-i̯os. This is nowhere attested in the Celtic world. But the basic *Arto-rīχs is, see above OIr. Artrí; the British forms with second member *-maglos are but a variant of the same.
134 Stefan Zimmer
Figure 1. By courtesy of Historisches Museum, Bern.
The patronymic type in *-i̯os is well known, cf. Gaulish names such as Tarbeisonios ‘son of Tarbeisu’; and of course, outside Celtic, especially in Greek. It should be safe to assume as a working hypothesis that the *-g- underwent a kind of early lenition (whether a Latin or Celtic phenomenon need not detain us) to the spirant -ʒ-/-j-, giving, with subsequent assimilation of [ʒj] > [jj] > [j], *Artorījos.7 The Latinization implied two simple adaptations to Latin:8
3.1. According to Latin writing conventions, *[artori:ʒjos] or *[artori:jos] was spelled, with automatic replacement of the Celtic ending by Latin -us, as Artorius.
3.2. Following the obvious and frequent pattern of Latin nouns in -ōrius, -a, -um, regular derivative adjectives to agent nouns (including proper names) in -tōr, the short -ŏ- in *Artŏrius was replaced by -ō-, and the long -ī- shortened, thus producing a totally Latin-sounding Artōrius.
3.3. The subsequent phonetic development from Latin Artōrius to Early Welsh Arthur is perfectly regular (cf. L labōrem > W llafur, etc.).
The Name of Arthur 135
4. Finally, it must be admitted that the presumed tradition from LUCIUS ARTORIUS CASTUS, second century, to the dux bellorum Arthurus in the Dark Ages of Britain cannot have been an undisturbed, textually continuous one. Most early Latin texts mentioning Arthur spell the name Arthur (this is the standard Welsh form) or, with a Latin ending, Arthurus, but never Artorius.9 The latter, obviously, was unknown to the written tradition. The name-forms Artus and Artu are later Romance adaptations.
Notes
1. This qualification is necessary since there is one Artorius Modestus from Narbonne (CIL XII 5204); he may have been related to C. Artorius Orta[... (CIL XII 4623) and to Artoria Procula (CIL XII 5066).
2. The old proposal by the great Wilhelm Schulze (1904) who argued for Etruscan origin of Ar-torius (as he analysed the name) may be safely discarded.
3. Cf. CIL XIII 10008,7: Artus Dercomogni (from Maar, near Trier); not mentioned in Delamarre (2007).
4. Torsten Meissner points to the pertinent comments by Raepsaet-Charlier (2001) on the names of the Treveres. See now also Meissner (2010).
5. This latter inscription Artioni Biber ‘To [the goddess] Artio, Biber [gave this]’ may explain that at the same place, Artio is known as a man’s name: Artio Agritius (CIL XIII 4203).
6. Cf. the inscription from Carlisle in Britain: TANCORIX MULIER VIGSIT ANNOS SEGSAGINTA (RIB 908).
7. Cf. the parallel development in briga: Fr. Brie presupposes *Bria < Briga; Conim-briga > Coimbra.
8. Graham Isaac kindly proposed that I should make this explicit.
9. A twelfth-century variant Arcturus is due to learned speculation, linking the name with the asteronym Arcturus, designating the constellation Bootes, and especially the most brilliant star near the Great Bear’s tail end (< Greek Ἀρκτ-οῦρος ‘Bear warder’). It gained a certain popularity in British royal heraldry (cf. Anglo 1963).
136 Stefan Zimmer
References
CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Berlin: Reimer/de Gruyter, 1853–.
RE Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1839–1980, 84 volumes.
RIB Collingwood, R. G. and Wright, R. P. (1965) The Roman Inscriptions of Britain. I Inscriptions on Stone. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Anglo, S. (1963) The London Pageants for the Reception of Katharine of Aragon: November 1501. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 26, 53–89.
Delamarre, X. (2003) Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise. 2ème éd. Paris: Errance.
Delamarre, X. (2007) Noms de personnes celtiques dans l’épigraphie classique. Paris: Errance.
Eichner, H., Janka, I., Milan, L. (1994) Ein römerzeitliches Keramikgefäß aus Ptuj (Pettau, Poetovio) in Slovenien mit Inschrift in unbekanntem Alphabet und epichorischer (vermutlich keltischer) Sprache. Arheoloski Zbornik 45, 131–42.
Meissner, T. (2010) Das Hieronymuszeugnis und der Tod des Gallischen. Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 57, 91–6.
Raepsaet-Charlier, M.-Th. (2001) Characteristiques et particularités de l’onomastique trévire. In Dondin-Payre, M. and Raepsaet-Charlier, M.-Th. (eds), Noms, Identités culturelles et Romanisation. Bruxelles: Timpermann.
Schulze, W. (1904) Zur Geschichte lateinischer Eigennamen. Berlin: Weidmann.
Zimmer, S. (2006) Die keltischen Wurzeln der Artussage. Heidelberg: Winter.

COMING SOON: My Final Decision on the Northern Vs. the Southern Arthur

Lucius Artorius Castus Stone