IS UTHER'S KAWELL = THE CALE RIVER IN SOMERSET?

Cadbury Castle on the River Cam, Somerset

"Right at the South end of South Cadbury Church stands Camelot. This was once a noted town or castle, set on a real peak of a hill, and with marvellously strong natural defences..... Roman coins of gold, silver and copper have been turned up in large quantities during ploughing there, and also in the fields at the foot of the hill, especially on the East side. Many other antiquities have also been found, including at Camelot, within memory, a silver horseshoe. The only information local people can offer is that they have heard that Arthur frequently came to Camelot."

John Leland, 1542

[NOTE: Since writing this piece, I realized that Uther as Pen Kawell or 'Chieftain of Kawell' could be related to the Camel[l] names hard by Cadbury Castle in Somerset.  These names are spelled such from the time of the DB onwards. I received confirmation for the possibility from the likes of Dr. Simon Rodway at The University of Wales.  The letters w/v/u/m are often interchangeable, and so kawell may be a simple error for kamell.  If so, we may have direct evidence from the 'Marwnat Vthyr Pen' poem for Uther's connection with Cadbury Castle.  I had already shown at https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/09/arthur-and-cadwy-in-region-of-carrum.html that Arthur and Cadwy at Carrum was probably a relocation for Cadbury bordering on Cary.]

A potential shocker here, which I am reserving judgment on for now.  Just thought I would put it out there.

I was finishing up work on all possible variant readings for the Pen Kawell of the Uther Pendragon elegy poem.  At the same time, I was reviewing some old pieces I wrote on a very revolutionary idea pertaining to the nature of the Uther Pendragon name/epithet.  Some members of my blog site may remember the following:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2020/09/gerontius-magister-utriusque-militiae.html

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/01/uther-pendragon-as-magister-utriusque.html

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/08/uther-pendragon-and-flavius-victor.html

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/06/geraint-in-geoffrey-of-monmouth.html

In brief, I had entertained the notion that Uther Pendragon (noting that uther could be spelled uter; cf. Latin uter) was an attempted Welsh rendering of the magister utriusque militiae title of the early 5th century British general Gerontius.  And that while that man was not Arthur's father, it may well be that the later Dumnonian Geraint, perhaps named for the more famous Gerontius, was the father of the hero.

In the first link listed above, I commented on Arthur's association with a Dumnonian Geraint thusly:

There is yet another possible reason why Arthur is found in the Geraint poem on the Battle of Llongporth.  In 658 A.D., according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Cenwalh battled the Welsh at Penselwood in Somerset and drove them to the River Parrett. It cannot be a coincidence that Langport lies on the Parrett.  A Geraint is mentioned as fighting Ine and Nunna in 710, but the location is not given.

Notice that directly between Penselwood and Langport lies South Cadbury, site of the famous Cadbury Castle hillfort that traditionally has been associated with Arthur.  The River Cam at South Cadbury is a tributary of the Yeo and becomes the Parrett at Langport. 

If a Geraint fought here, then we may have some evidence that his fortress was Cadbury Castle.  Geraint had a son named Cadwy and I've elsewhere written about this name and its connection to the various Cadbury forts (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/12/cadburys-and-personal-name-badda.html).  Arthur is paired with Cadwy at Dindraithou (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2017/12/dindraithou-darts-castle-at-watchet.html and https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2019/12/cadburys-and-personal-name-badda.html). This latter fort, while not truly Arthurian, is in the same region of England as the several Cadbury forts.

What came out of this idea was a reappraisal of Arthur's tradition pedigree:

  THE DUMNONIAN GENEALOGY OF ARTHUR AND GEREINT

From http://christophergwinn.com/arthuriana/arthurs-pedigree/, we can compare the various gene-alogies relating to Arthur and Geraint:

MOSTYN MS 117, 5

Arthur-Vthyr-Kustenin/Kwysdenin

BONEDD YR ARWYR, 30a

Arthur-Uther-Kustenin Vendigeit

BONEDD YR ARWYR, 30b

Arthur-Vthyr bendragon-Kustenin

BONEDD Y SAINT, 76

Geraint-Erbin-Custennin/Kwysdenin Gornev

To which we may add that of the Life of St. Cybi, thought to be a "mishandling" of the material by John Koch:

Erbin-Geraint-Custennin

We can see that in some lines of descent, Uther is the son of Constantine, as per Geoffrey of Monmouth.  In others, Geraint is made the son or grandson of Constantine.

I suspect our clue to repairing this genealogy is to look a bit harder at what Koch called above “a sloppy mishandling of genealogies” in the Life of St. Cybi. There Erbin is called the son of Gereint rather than the latter’s father. What I would propose is this:  the original genealogy ran 

[Arthur son of] Gereint (Uther) son of Erbin son of Gerontius MVM 

with the magister utriusque militiae rank of Gerontius being transferred to the Gereint who claimed to be his grandson. 

Now, again, I made nothing of this at the time, besides noting that it appeared to be an interesting nod to the tradition that insists Arthur belongs to the "Summer Country."

But in looking again at Pen Kawell of the MARWNAT VTHYR PEN, an elegy poem in the Book of Taliesin about Uther, I happened upon a place-name which seemed more than a little interesting: the Cale river and associated Wincanton.  Ekwall mentions the early forms of the river name as Cawel, Wincawel, and calls it a "pre-English river-name."  Mills has “Celtic river-name of uncertain origin, but prefixed by *winn ‘white’.  Watts compares the name to Cornish cawal, Welsh cawell ‘basket, creel, pannier’. 

Cawel and Wincawel, or the White Cawel (Win- being from Welsh gwyn) were different branches of the Cale.

[It was not necessary to try and force kawell into Camel, as I had once done, knowing that w could easily become m in some MSS.  The problem with the Camel place-name is that it is attested first in 1086 in the Domesday Book.  Before then it was Cantmael.  My previous discussion regarding Camel and kawell with Dr. Simon Rodway of The University of Wales ran like this:

"I was wondering about that 'pen kawell' in the Uther elegy poem...

As Cadbury Castle (said by Leland to be Arthur's fort) is as early as the DB camel, camelle, could Uther here be saying either he was 'chief of Camel' or that the place was called Pen Camel because it was a hill?

Pretty much, I'm just wondering about the possibility LINGUISTICALLY."

His response?

"It's possible."]

The River Cale (Cawel) in Relationship to Cadbury Castle, Langport, Glastonbury and Penselwood

https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsBritain/BritainDumnonia.htm

If Uther is claiming the River Cale/Cawel for himself, then we cannot ignore its proximity to Cadbury Castle, Langport, Glastonbury and Penselwood.

If we go with this "possible" interpretation of kawell, i.e. allowing for the word to be the river in question, then we can translate the relevant lines of the Uther elegy in this way:

Neu vi luossawc yn trydar:

It is I who commands hosts in battle:

ny pheidwn rwg deu lu heb wyar.

I’d not give up between two forces without bloodshed.

Neu vi a elwir gorlassar:

It’s I who’s styled ‘Gorlassar’ [= the Galfridian Gorlois]: (1)

vy gwrys bu enuys y’m hescar.

my ferocity snared my enemy.

5 Neu vi tywyssawc yn tywyll:

It is I who’s a leader in darkness:

a’m rithwy am dwy pen kawell.May God transform me, Chief of the River Cale [or, May God transform me at the Head of the River Cale; note that pen in Welsh can also denote a sea promontory similar to Geoffrey of Monmouth's Tintagel Head, reputed birthplace of Arthur.  Uther may be calling himself Gorlassar/'Gorlois' at Camel.  There is a Pen Hill only 1000 meters to the east of Cadbury Castle. According to Ekwall, this aet tham Paenne 1065 Wells is British pen.  Pen Ridge near the source of the Cale is a significant archaeological site.  For details on this last see https://st12.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2058152523?profile=original.  Penselwood was originally called Peonnum, thought to be a dative plural of OE *penn, itself from British pen 'hill' (Ekwall).  The Cale rises in Coneygore Wood, to the north of the village of Penselwood. Just to the north of Pen Ridge is Pen Hill with Kenwalch's Castle hillfort.  For the listing of this monument see https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=202653&resourceID=19191. Other pen place-names are to be found near Penselwood (e.g. Pen Forest, Penhouse Farm). Pen Pits are ancient quern quarries (https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1006139.  The is even a prominent hill called Penn near Yeovil, as well as Pendomer, showing how common the place-name element is in this area, once the boundary zone between Dumnonia and Wessex.] (2)

Neu vi eil ka[n]wyl yn ardu:

It’s I who’s like a star [fig. a leader; this is probably the origin of the dragon-headed star

in Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudo-history] (3) in the gloom:

ny pheidwn heb wyar rwg deu lu.

I’d not give up without bloodshed [the fight] between two forces.

What is attractive about Uther Pendragon as a reflection of a Dumnonian Geraint who himself had been confused with his namesake, the Magister Utriusque Militiae Gerontius, is that we are no longer forced to resort to applying the name/epithet 'Terrible Chief Warrior or Chief of Warriors' to other known historical entities who have their own separate names.  What I mean by this is that there has been the tendency (and I have been guilty of this as well!)  to interpret Uther Pendragon not as a proper name + epithet, but as a sort of heroic title that was applied to someone else.  This method of identification brings with it many problems, not least of which is that one can choose to identify Uther with pretty much anyone.  In the case of Gerontius/Geraint, however, the title really is a known Latin military rank that was applied to a recognized historical person.

If Arthur belonged at Cadbury Castle, as the tradition recorded by Leland in the 16th century claims, then anyone searching for Arthur elsewhere (like in the North, which is the currently fashionable location) is on the wrong track.  Instead, we would be viewing Arthur as a distinctly southern counterpoint to the English hero Cerdic of Wessex.  And, indeed, I once thought that several of the Welsh names for Arthur's battle sites matched those of Cerdic's. 

If nothing else, the above speculation shows us just how hazardous Arthurian theorizing can be.  Arthur is a slippery hero, which is exactly why so many refuse to acknowledge his historicity and consign him to the realms of folklore and literary invention.  

I would hasten to add that if Cadbury Castle is the Arthurian center, we must not be so quick to dispense with the Glastonbury site as 'Avalon.'  In the past, I have done everything in my power to remove the glamor from Glastonbury, convinced as I was the Arthur's burial there was spurious tradition.  Do we need now to take another look at it as the real burial place of the king?

Maybe.  But first we do need to get past the probable source of Geoffrey of Monmouth's apple-island, the Cornish Guerdevalan/Gerdavalan (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-avalon-of-geoffrey-of-monmouth.html).

(1)

Marged Haycock's note on gorlassar:

gorlassar Cf. PT V.28 Gorgoryawc gorlassawc gorlassar, rhyming with escar,

as here; again PT VIII.17 goryawc gorlassawc gorlassar. Both passages are

corrupt. PT 98 suggests ‘clad in blue-grey armour’ or ‘armed with blue-grey

weapons’, following G and GPC who derive it from glassar ‘sward, turf, sod’

rather than llassar ‘azure’, etc. (see GPC s.v. llasar), presumably because one

would expect *gorllasar. That may indeed have been present, with l representing

developed [ɬ]. Llassar is rhymed with casnar, Casnar (cf. line 10 casnur) in CBT

III 16.55, VII 52.14-5. On the personal names Llasar Llaes Gygnwyd, OIr

Lasa(i)r, calch llassar ‘lime of azure’, etc., see Patrick Sims-Williams, The Iron

House in Ireland, H. M. Chadwick Memorial Lecture 16 (Cambridge 2005), 11-

16; IIMWL 250-7.

However, the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru says -

gorlasar

[gor-+glasar, H. Wydd. for-las(s)ar ‘tanllwyth mawr, tanbeidrwydd mawr’ ac fel a. ‘disglair, tanbaid’]

Associated with Old Irish forlas(s)ar, great blaze, great radiance.

When I asked Dr. Simon Rodway of The University of Wales about forlassar, he replied:

"GPC is misleading here.  If gorlasar is in any way connected with OI forlassar, then it must contain llasar, not glasar (‘sward, turf, sod’ < glas ‘blue, green’ + ar ‘tilled land’).  However gor + llasar should give *gorllasar as ll does not mutate after r.  One could invoke Old Welsh orthography here in which ll is represented by l.  Alternatively, glasar could have developed as a hypercorrect variant of llasar due to a folk etymology connection with glas ‘blue’.

Llasar could be a borrowing of Irish lasair, as GPC says.  I suspect that we have a number of different items which have become mixed together here – Latin lazur, Irish lasar + perhaps Med. Latin lazarus ‘beggar, leper’ < the Biblical Lazarus.

Patrick Sims-Williams discusses this in chapter 9 of his Irish Influence on Medieval Welsh Literature (Oxford, 2011)."

In terms of the context of the poem, with Uther presenting himself as a 'leader in darkness" and "a candle/star in the gloom", a word akin to Irish forlassar makes a great deal more sense that wearing blue-enameled weapons and/or armor.  

(2)

My best guess for Pen Kawell is that this represents either a general term for Pen Ridge - the long ridge running north to south and from which the River Cale rises - or it is a more specific term for Kenwalch's (= Cenwalh's) Castle on Pen Hill.  While the main branch of the Cale rises in Coneygore Wood next to Pen Ridge Farm, another headwater issues from just below the hillfort.  Kenwalch's Castle is usually identified with the Peonnum of the ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE. To demonstrate what I am talking about, please see the following two maps.

To demonstrate how important Pen Ridge was, I quote here from the study cited above (https://st12.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2058152523?profile=original):

In 652 AD on the West-Saxon frontier with Dumnonia, Cenwealh made a breakthrough against the Dumnonii defensive lines at the battle of Bradford-upon-Avon and more land was expanded as Wessex territory. Dumnonia was reduced further west, now its entire eastern half had become part of Wessex. The Chronicle then records a battle between Cenwealh and the Dumnonian Britons in its entry for 658 AD, the Battle of Peonnum took place on Pen Ridge; “the Dumnonians had angered Cenwealh by convening rebellion and demanding ancient liberties be restored”, (Bede). The two forts at Peonnum had long been the gateways into Selwood Forest; and the ridgeline was the old Dumnonian border with Wessex. "Here Cenwealh fought at Peonnum, where he thrashed the Britons, causing them to flee as far as the River Parret", (Bede). This is why the local folklore of ‘Cenwealh’s Camp’ is still told today. The Dumnonians that had remained in the area, now part of Wessex and under West-Saxon rule were protesting. These rebel Britons rallied their forces here at the old boundary site on Pen-Ridge. It was a good spot for a battle, where the rebels most likely rather hastily re-fortified the abandoned Castle-Wood hill fort in 658 AD and waited for Cenwealh to arrive. The battle was one-sided as Cenwealh chased the Britons thrashing them for nearly fifteen miles as far as the river Parret (Yeovil), back to their own lands and out of West-Saxon territory for ever more. Cenwealh is said to have camped at Castle-Wood around this time, guarding the old frontier gateway and boundary for a brief period, for it was a good strategic site, overlooking Selwood forest, Glastonbury Tor and his enemy the Dumnonians to the west. It is not clear how long he stayed in camp, his advance into the British south-west is obscure, although Cenwealh’s relations with the Britons were not always hostile, and he was reported to have endowed British Monasteries at both Sherborne and Glastonbury around this time. Some sixteen years after Cenwealhs’ death, Ine a West-Saxon nobleman finally became King of Wessex again, from 688 to 726 AD. He successfully established Wessex as a true kingdom by creating the ‘shires’, and a code of laws. To mark territory for three of these ‘shires’, Ine used the old natural boundary divides at Peonnum for; Wiltshire, Hampshire (later Dorset) and Somersetshire. During his reign Ine continued to be at war with Geraint, King of Dumnonia.  

I should not neglect to add that pen in Welsh, at any rate, could be used of the source of a stream or river, i.e. a river-head.  Pen Cawel could, then, designate the place where the river Cawel rises.  

(3)

Dr. Simon Rodway has informed me that the MS.'s kawyl could represent an error for cannwyll:

"Yes, that’s possible. A copyist might have missed an n-suspension over the a, and single n for double nn is quite common in Middle Welsh MSS."

Three things make me a bit uneasy.

 1)      This requires positing an n-suspension.  These do occur occasionally in medieval Welsh MSS, but they are very rare.

2)      The single l would mean suggesting an Old Welsh exemplar, for which there is no other clear evidence in the poem.  Elsewhere the scribe has ll where needed, so if he was copying from an examplar with l for ll, then this would be the only occasion on which he didn’t correctly modernize.

3)      Supposing an n-suspension would only allow us to restore one n.  In an OW form, one would expect nt, nh or perhaps nn, but not n.

Overall, emendation to Sawyl, while totally speculative, involves less issues (eye-skip to kawell in the previous line), and eil Sawyl, ‘a second Samuel’ gives plausible sense."

Earlier, Dr. Rodway had explained how an eye-skip could have occurred in this instance:

"It can’t be a case of miscopying a letter, but it could be eye-skip - when a copyist’s eye skips inadvertently to another nearby word resulting in an error.  In this case, he would have eye-skipped to the preceding line's 'kawell' to get the /k-/ fronting what should have been 'sawyl'.  Was not an uncommon error, so quite plausible.  Also, kawell and kawyl are unlikely to be the same word.  The poets avoided repeating words in consecutive lines. In cases where this does occur (v rare) it could be scribal error."

In THE BOOK OF TALIESIN,  there is a famous prophetic poem called 'Armes Prydein Vawr.'  Line 88 of that poem says of Cynan of the Prophecies:

canhwyll yn tywyll a gerd genhyn.

a candle in the darkness goes with us:

The editor and translator Sir Ifor Williams has in his 'Vocabulary' for the poem:

canhwyll nf. candle ( = hero) 88

This is a near perfect match for the Uther elegy's 'kawyl yn ardu.'

For this reason I'm settling once and for all on kawyl not as Sawyl, but as cannwyll, a word that could mean 'star' (transf.) and 'leader' or 'hero' (fig.).  We can thus conclude that it was here that Geoffrey of Monmouth got his idea for Uther's star, just as he got his idea for Gorlois from the gorlassar epithet applied to Uther. 

From the GPC:

cannwyll

[bnth. Llad. Diw. cantēla < candēla, H. Grn. cantuil, Llyd. C. cantoell, Gwydd. coinneal]

eb. ll. canhwyllau.

a  Darn silindraidd o wêr neu gŵyr wedi ei wei-thio o gwmpas pabwyryn ac a ddefnyddir i roi golau, yn dros. am seren, haul, lloer, llusern, lamp, &c.; yn ffig. am oleuni, disgleirdeb, cy-farwyddyd, arweiniad, arweinydd, arwr, y pen-naf, y rhagoraf, &c.:

candle, luminary, transf. of star, sun, moon, lamp; fig. of light, brightness, instruction, lead-er, hero, choicest or best of anything. 

ARMENIOS VS. ARMORICOS: A BRIEF DISCUSSION WITH PROFESSOR ROGER TOMLIN

Marcus Aurelius 'ARMENIACUS'

In concluding our many months of give-and-take over the L. Artorius Castus memorial stone, I did finally persuade Professor Roger Tomlin to allow the possibility that the fragmentary ARM[...]S of the inscription could be for ARMORICOS.  See https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/05/professor-roger-tomlins-final-word-on-l.html.

However, it doesn't follow that he favors ARMORICOS.  His preference was based on several points, some of which I had first raised.

1) ARMENIOS fits better on the stone and was a very well known place across the Empire.  In Tomlin's words:

"It often happens in epigraphy that you can't decide 100% between two possible restorations – you can only weigh the possibilities. ARMENIOS I think more likely than ARMORICOS, both because it fits more easily (but, I repeat, the other will also fit) and because my guess is that 9 out of 10 Liburnians would have heard of 'Armenia', but only 1 out of 10 'Armorica'. That is bare assertion, of course, but I can't help feeling that LAC was expecting his readers to know what he was referring to."

2) Statius Priscus as governor of Britain going to Armenia to command the war.  Once again, Tomlin:

"I see Statius Priscus as being transferred at short notice from Britain to take command in Armenia. He did not necessarily travel with troops from Britain – indeed, since his mission was urgent, I expect he went ahead of them. I have only suggested that he chose a reliable man whom he knew to take command of the (hypothetical) British contingent. No doubt other contingents were being despatched from the Rhine and Danube frontiers. LAC was only commanding an improvised unit in – according to my reconstruction – the field army that was assembled to campaign in Armenia. Statius Priscus was its commander-in-chief, but he did not 'command' each of its components as well, except in the sense that a modern lieutenant-general commands all the battalions in his army, each under its own lieutenant-colonel.

"That war was supposedly looming in Britain when Priscus left need not overly disturb us. The Augustan History always seems to point to trouble in Britain at the accession of a new Emperor – and if major warfare really was impending there, why transfer your best general somewhere else?"

3) Our sources only tell us of one reorganization of Dalmatia, and that occurred under Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus in 168 A.D.  Tomlin:

"The way in which LAC refers to his final post strongly suggests – to me – the improvisation of a new province. Its immediately available governor would have been the procurator who was given special powers making him the equivalent of a senatorial legate. It is an example of what happened in the second century, the increasing promotion of able equestrians to 'senatorial' posts, the process that was ultimately formalised by Gallienus."

4) To use the 'proc centenario' of the stone to claim it cannot be based before the very late Antonine merely because the earliest example is found in the reign of Commodus.

"This may be a case of Absence of Evidence = Evidence of Absence. Just because we can't find a centenarian procurator earlier than Commodus in an inscription, we must conclude there is no such thing! We have Q. Domitius Marsianus, quoting and translating the inscription (AE 1962, 183) honouring him at Bulla Regia. This quotes Marcus Aurelius' letter of appointment, appointing him to 'the splendour of a ducenarian procuratorship'.  Then we have Valerius Maximianus during the reign of the same emperor discussing his pay grades.  

As you know too well, the pay grade centenarius for a procurator is known to have existed at least fifty years before Commodus, so its non-appearance in earlier inscriptions is not decisive. It is the highest rate of pay ever achieved by LAC, and he wanted to advertise the fact."

All of that would seem to cause us to choose ARMENIOS, and I feel that the argument for the word as the best reading for ARM[...]S must continue to be considered.

ARMORICOS has its merits. It works best for me because I need a LAC who sufficiently impressed himself upon the Sarmatians in Britain for them to have remembered him and passed him name down to the Dark Age Arthur born at Ribchester, site of the Sarmatian veteran settlement.  If LAC fought in Armenia, then he left Britain before the Sarmatians were sent there in 175.  It would be impossible to account for the name Arthur at sub-Roman Bremetennacum. 

Still, it is important that I not discount entirely the ARMENIOS reading.  After all, it may turn out that I am wrong about Arthur of Ribchester.  

PROFESSOR ROGER TOMLIN'S FINAL WORD ON THE L. ARTORIUS CASTUS INSCRIPTION

After a lengthy discussion with Professor Roger Tomlin about the reading of the fragmentary L. Artorius Castus stone, his unedited conclusion was as follows (comments italicized in brackets are mine and allude to specific points in my argument that directly elicited the associated phrases of his response):

"As you know too well, the pay grade centenarius for a procurator is known to have existed at least fifty years before Commodus, so its non-appearance in earlier inscriptions is not decisive.

I agree that ARMORICOS fits perfectly well. You are welcome to your Armorican War, but you must forgive me for hankering after the neatness of linking LAC with SP [Statius Priscus, the governor of Britain who commanded the Armenian War].

What you say about the other Priscus [that he would not have been put in command of British units on the Continent after being offered the purple by British troops in his earlier stint as legate of the Sixth] is fair enough.  [Thus the -nicarum on the Priscus stone must be for Germanicarum.] He had demonstrated his loyalty as far as British troops were concerned, and since usurpers were expected any way to show initial hesitation ('le réfus de pouvoir'), I can well imagine the authorities would have removed him, just to be on the safe side.

[I dislike the removal of three large vexillations from Britain to Armenia when we are specifically told war was looming in the former province.  It seems a very improbable time for those forces to be removed - especially a prefect of the Sixth.  The problems that ensued in Britain were all in the North, where LAC would have been sorely needed.  The British troops that went to Germania on the stone in northern England did so when Britain was at peace.  While LAC could have been sent to deal with the Deserters' War once the British War was done - Birley suggests it would have been a wise move to deal with mutinous troops in this way - I just can't see him being sent to Armenia with a large force when war was imminent in Britain.] Yes, that's a good point. I agree with you. Armenia is a long way to send reinforcements, and it implies confidence that the northern frontier was quiet."

L. ARTORIUS CASTUS IN ARMORICA: THE CASE FOR HIS PARTICIPATION IN THE DESERTERS' WAR

The Priscus Stone (from Gregori)

CIL 06, 41127

The Priscus Inscription (from Gregori)

Some time ago I explored the possibility that Lucius Artorius Castus had taken part in the bellum desertorum or Deserters' War on the Continent during the reign of Emperor Commodus:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/04/can-we-place-lucius-artorius-castus-in.html

In summary, there is considerable archaeological evidence for wide-spread destruction in Armorica at this time, despite the fact that Classical sources are silent on anything transpiring in that region.  Still, the Desertors War is said to have been happening in Gaul and Armorica was a part of Gaul.  

As I've only recently found a very good reason to settle on Armorica instead of Armenia or Armatos for the fragmentary ARM[...]S of the LAC inscription (https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/05/well-this-is-embarrassing-arms-can-in.html), it is necessary for me to explore how an Armorica expedition would have played out for LAC, especially given the apparent involvment of Priscus in the same war.

To begin, we need to once more take a good, long, hard look at this Priscus.  I will begin with the discussion of this man as found in Anthony Birley's THE ROMAN GOVERNMENT OF BRITAIN:

35. c.184? Priscus

Dio 72. 9. 2a (Petrus Patricius, Exc. Vat. 122): The soldiers in Britain chose the legionary legate

Priscus as emperor, but he declined, saying that ‘I am as much an emperor as you are soldiers’.

From its position in the excerpta this must describe an event between 177, exc.

Vat. 121, on Marcus Aurelius’ return to Rome in 177 (Dio 71. 32. 1), and 189–90,

123, on Julius Solon’s entry to the senate (72. 12. 3). A passage in the HA points

to the early 180s: ‘Commodus was called Britannicus by flatterers when the

Britons even wanted to choose another emperor in opposition to him’ (HA

Comm. 8. 4). The offer to Priscus could then be dated to 184, when Commodus

became Britannicus (see under Gov. 33). The HA also transmits the response

260 High Officials of the Undivided Province

tinguished career, including not least membership of a priestly college. Other possible ancestors are

the Augustan senator Cerrinius Gallus (Suet. D. Aug. 53. 3) and Martial’s friend Cerrinius, who wrote

epigrams (8. 18).

¹³⁹ CIL x. 7506+add.; PIR2 C 693.

¹⁴⁰ All communities in Pomptina were Italian: Kubitschek, Imperium Romanun, 271. Pflaum, Narbonnaise,

26f., pointed out that he was not a native of Volturnum.

to this abortive coup, although the connection is not made: the guard prefect

Perennis replaced legionary legates with equestrian commanders during the

British war, a measure which led to his own overthrow, in 185 (Comm. 6. 2) (see

under Gov. 33). Later in the HA Pertinax (Gov. 35) is said to have ‘deterred the

soldiers from mutiny, when they wanted anyone [else other than Commodus]

as emperor, especially Pertinax himself ’ (Pert. 2. 6), shortly after his arrival as

governor in 185. This is another possible context for the Priscus episode, but

Perennis’ measure makes the previous year more plausible. This legate could

be the Commodan general discussed below (36), who may have been called

Priscus among other names and possibly commanded VI Victrix at about this

time.

36. c.184? VI Victrix?, [ . . . J]unius [?Pris]cus Gar[gilius? . . .

?Qui]ntil[i]anus (cos. c.190)

G. Gregori, ZPE 106 (1995), 269–79=AE 1995. 231=G. Alföldy, CIL vi. 41127, Rome:

[ . . . I]unio, [ . . . f(ilio), . . . , Pris(?)]co |G.

ar[gilio(?) | . . . Qui(?)]ntil[i]an[o, co(n)s(uli), 4| sodal]i. Titiali

Fla[viali, | leg(ato) Au]g(usti) pr(o) pr(aetore) leg(ionis) II I. [talic(ae), | praep]o. sito vexill(ationum)

[leg(ionum) III (trium)? | Brita]Nnicar(um)(?), legato l.[eg(ionis) V 8| Macedo]nic(ae), leg(ato) leg(ionis) [VI

| Victr(icis)(?) pi]ae fidel(is), cur[atori | rei pub]lic(ae) Cirtens[ium, | iuridic]o per Aemil[iam, 12|

Liguri(?)]am, praetor[i, trib(uno) | pl(ebis)?, qua]est(ori), triumvi[ro | c]apitali. | [Huic s]enatus, auc.[tore 16|

Imp(eratore) Cae]s(are) L(ucio) Aelio Aur[elio | Comm]odo Pio Feli[ce Aug(usto, | statua]m i.n te.mpl.[o . . . |

. . . ponendam censuit (?)].

To . . . Junius, son of . . . , . . . , Priscus? Gargilius? . . . Quintilianus?, consul, sodalis Titialis

Flavialis, propraetorian legate of the Emperor of the Second Legion Italica, commander of

vexillations of the three? British? legions, legate of the Fifth Legion Macedonica, legate of the

Sixth? Legion Victrix? Pia Fidelis, curator of the commonwealth of the Cirtensians, iuridicus in

Aemilia and ?Liguria, praetor, tribune of the plebs?, quaestor, triumvir capitalis. The senate, on

the motion of the Emperor Caesar Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus Pius Felix Augustus,

decreed the setting up of a statue? to this man in the temple of . . .

This unusual career can be dated by Commodus’ names, a style first assumed

in 191.¹⁴¹ The restoration of VI Victrix as one of the legions which the honorand

commanded depends on Alföldy’s conjecture that he is identical with the

legate Priscus (LL 35). A summary may be offered of Alföldy’s discussion. This

legate was no doubt a novus homo, to judge from his start as capitalis. Without

being military tribune, he went on to the three usual urban magistracies. After

the praetorship he was iuridicus in North Italy, then curator of Cirta in N.

Africa, before his first legionary command, of a legion with the title pia fidelis,

perhaps VI Victrix. If this is right, and he was the Priscus whom the legionaries

tried to make emperor, he was removed from this post by Perennis. He

Legionary Legates 261

¹⁴¹ G. A(lföldy) on CIL vi. 41127, citing D. Kienast, Kaisertabelle2 (1996), 148; cf. PIR2 Q 18.

certainly went on to command another legion, V Macedonica, in Dacia: a

second legionary command indicates trouble where the second one was based

and there was warfare in Dacia under Commodus (HA Comm. 13. 5). There

followed command over detachments of several legions, restored as [Brita]nnicarum.

Alföldy convincingly proposes that this force was assigned to deal with

the so-called ‘deserters’ war’ and can be identified with the ‘1,500 javelin-men’

from the British army who lynched Perennis near Rome in 185 (Dio 72(73). 9.

22–4) (cf. under Gov. 33). His final appointment—before the consulship,

restored, but very probable¹⁴²—was as legate of yet another legion, II Italica,

exceptionally described as ‘propraetorian legate’. II Italica was by then

normally commanded by the governor of Noricum. As he is not called legate

of Noricum, the legion must have been operating outside the province, even

beyond the frontier in Commodus’ ‘third German expedition’, perhaps

datable to 188.¹⁴³ His names include [J]unius, then a cognomen ending [ ]cus,

which could of course be for example, [Atti]cus, [Flac]cus, [Fus]cus, [Tus]cus,

[Urbi]cus, to mention some of the many names of the right length, as well as

[Pris]cus.¹⁴⁴ His next name began Gar[ ], probably Gar[gilius], followed by

one ending [ ]ntil[i]anus, for which [Qui]ntilianus is more plausible than

[De]ntilianus. Alföldy infers from the name Gar[gilius] and the post as

curator of Cirta that the man may have come from North Africa.

Professor Roger Tomlin was kind enough to discuss this man at length, and the problems involved in piecing together his hypoethical career.  He also sent me the best recent article on Priscus, Un nuovo senatore dell'età di Commodo? by Gian Luca Gregori, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik,

Bd. 106 (1995), pp. 269-279 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/20189321?seq=1).

"The problem is whether the Rome inscription attests a legate of III Augusta. This man [...]VNIO [...]CO is consul under Commodus, commander of several legions, with an African connection (honoured by Cirta). The difficulty is reading the legions, as you can see. The first one looks like II Something, but (as Birley notices) for its commander to be described as legate 'pro praetore' implies that he had more the status of a provincial governor. For this reason I think Birley's critics prefer to see it as III [Augusta] rather than II I[talica], since the legate of III Augusta was also governor of Numidia. This would fit neatly with the Legate of III Augusta called T. Caunius Priscus, since he is attested by Dessau ILS 3843 (Lambaesis), which also says he was 'consul designate'. His dating depends on a very fragmentary inscription also from Lambaesis (CIL vi.2697), which attests a legate of Commodus (AD 186) called [...]CO LEG[...]. 

You will have to decide for yourself whether all these identifications and restorations hang together.

Priscus would have been superior in rank, but they cannot have held the same command. LAC is 'dux legionum [...] Britanicianarum' – i.e. acting-commander of a force drawn from the British legions (etc.) – while Priscus (if correctly restored) is 'praepositus vexillationum [of legions, plausibly restored as 'British', but this is not certain]', i.e. acting-commander of [?British legionary] detachments.

They are equivalent commands, and thus surely two different commands?

Our basic problem, as you know, is whether we can pull all these inscriptions together and refer them to the same man – (1) Titus Caunius Priscus, legate of III Augusta who is about to become consul (but we don't know when); (2) the legate of III Augusta called ]CO LEG[, who is in post under Commodus; (3) the consul of Commodus in c.191 who is called ]VNIO ... [...]CO. Identifying (3) with (2) depends on seeing his latest command as III Augusta, not II Italica (as in Birley p. 261, following Gregori and Alföldy). From what I can see of the stone, this is possible, and better suits his titulature.

If you do identify the three, you get a long and interesting senatorial career crowned by the consulship at the end of Commodus' reign. In ascending order:

legate of VI Victrix (but bear in mind that this is a restoration – we only know for sure that it was a legion with P F in its titulature)

legate of V Macedonica

field-commander of vexillations drawn from a provincial army ending in –NNICARVM , which again must be reconstructed as the 'British' legions. The first N is doubtful – could it be 'Germanicarum' instead?

legate of III Augusta (which depends on a re-reading of the Rome inscription)

consul, c. 191

If this is seen as the career of Caunius Priscus, which I think is reasonable (but not certain), then you get a tight chronology if you try to fit it to the second-rate literary record.

Priscus is legate of VI Victrix in 184, when Commodus becomes Britannicus and the British army tries to proclaim the legate Priscus. He is promoted for his loyalty, and also to get him out of Britain – becomes legate of V Macedonica. As such, he is made acting-commander of a field force perhaps (but not necessarily) drawn from Britain. In any case, he would not have needed to go to Britain to command a field-force operating on the Continent.

He is successful in this command – i.e. he kills Maternus – and as a reward gets the plum post of III Augusta which is a provincial governorship as well; and naturally leads to the consulship.

I think you can squeeze it all together, since his legionary command in Britain would have ended with his refusal to become a usurper, and he could have commanded the vexillations during his next post, the command of V Macedonica.

I leave it to you to decide whether the vexillations were 'British' or to be identified with the 1500 spearmen who killed Perennis, let alone whether LAC had anything to do with all this."

I do not think the argument for the vexillations being British is a strong one.  Why?  Because Priscus had been removed from Britain precisely because the troops tried to raise him to the purple.  Would a paranoid Commodus only a short time later provide that same man with mutinous British troops on the Continent?  That is quite illogical and, for that reason, almost certainly wrong.

That the vexillations were German, however, makes perfect sense.  Anthony Birley (in THE ROMAN GOVERNMENT IN BRITAIN) says of Priscus' role as legate of the Italian legion:

"II Italica was by then normally commanded by the governor of Noricum. As he is not called legate of Noricum, the legion must have been operating outside the province, even beyond the frontier in Commodus’ ‘third German expedition’, perhaps datable to 188.¹⁴³

This timeframe works.  With Priscus being offered the purple at the completion of the British War in 184, he would have time to serve his post with the Macedonian before taking command of the Germanic vexillations a few years later.  

The case for GERMANICARUM becomes stronger given the substantial evidence we have for Germania's involvement in the Deserters' War. To quote from BANDITS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE by Thomas Grunewald (https://historicalunderbelly.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/thoma-grunewald-bandits-in-the-roman-empire-myth-and-reality-2004.pdf) :

"A. Alföldy has convincingly put together the evidence to suggest that it was Maternus and his deserters who blockaded VIII Augusta in its main base at Strasbourg. This not only confirms that Maternus had a significant number of men at his disposal, but also provides a geographical reference, localising one centre of unrest in upper Germany."

Grunewald continues later in his book, showing that there was trouble in Germany and Gaul, including northwestern Gaul (where Armorica is located):

"In the current state of our knowledge we can, therefore, make out a

number of different centres of military unrest in Gaul and the Germanies of

the early 180s – in Upper Germany, and north-western and western Gaul. If

all the evidence is connected to Maternus, the geographical and chronological

extent of the Bellum Desertorum emerges as very wide indeed. Herodian’s

reference, apropos the wide distribution of the trouble spots, to Gaul and

Spain, seems more trustworthy; and the idea of some sort of link between

Maternus and the Bagaudae receives significant confirmation since the evidence

for destruction in north-west Gaul, most recently pointed up by Picard,

fits in well with the notion of this area’s being the heart of the Bagaudic

movement.

Now this series of incidents, strung together to form a chain of evidence,

may well indicate that a number of regions in the general area of Gaul and

the Germanies suffered warlike incidents under Commodus, probably the

result of military threat, political instability and social crisis (whether real

or perceived). Maternus’ rebellion may, without doubt, be seen as manifestation

of this last. However, there is no proof that all these trouble-spots were

linked to the revolt; and, what is more, contemporary symptoms of crisis are

certainly to be found even further afield in Gaul. To name just one example:

around the time that Commodus succeeded Marcus Aurelius, Trier received

its first city wall, still evidenced by its mighty North Gate, the ‘Porta

Nigra’.164 Since Trier had been granted colonial status under Augustus, the

construction of this wall can hardly be explained symbolically – as marking

the rank of colonia. And even if the wall was built close to the time of

Maternus’ rising, without further evidence no one would dream of supposing

that it was erected just because of it. It is more likely that ‘general

unrest on the frontiers of the Rhine and Danube made the Treveri think it

advisable to adorn their tribal capital with a circuit-wall’.165 Contributory to

this ‘general unrest’ were, no doubt, numerous smaller incidents on the lines

of that of Maternus. Together with the new Germanic threat, they increased

the severity of the coming overall ‘Crisis’ of the third century, of which they

may be said to have been the harbingers. Thus it seems unlikely, and in

any case unproven, that Maternus’ revolt grew to such a size that it extended

from the upper Rhine to the far north-west of Gaul.

The only link between Maternus and the Bagaudae is the three inscriptions of

C. Iulius Septimius Castinus, each alike almost to the letter.166 As

commander of a detached force of men seconded from the four German

legions, under the Severi, Castinus had directed operations ‘against renegades

and rebels’ (adversus defectores et rebelles). Given the hundred years or so

that separated Maternus and the Bagaudae, the unique evidence of this

inscription should, from the start, be called upon as a link between the two

only with great circumspection. That the renegades and rebels mentioned

were insurgent provincials, deserters, runaway slaves and other marginal

figures, who still consciously saw themselves as continuing a movement

put down in 186, is not particularly plausible and anyway lacking in hard

evidence. The suppression of a provincial uprising involving units from

four legions would probably have found greater mention in the sources.

On the other hand, the explanation that Castinus and his force proceeded

against supporters of Clodius Albinus is convincing in terms of context and

chronology.167

Since it cannot be proved that Maternus was the instigator of all unrest

indicated in Gaul and the Germanies in his period, and since Castinus’

inscriptions are questionable as linking elements, it would seem best to steer

clear of any assumption of a basic connection between Maternus and the

Bagaudae.

In the second part of his report on the activities of the deserters, Herodian

first describes Maternus’ alleged intention of overthrowing Commodus and

claiming the imperial throne for himself.168 The planning and failure of

this attempt at usurpation form the conclusion of the account.169 The initial

uprising was crushed only after the involvement of the respective provincial

governors, ordered by Commodus to take active countermeasures after

complaining about their negligence in combating the rebellion. That Pescennius

Niger was put in charge of putting down the revolt should be seen as an

invention of the author of the Historia Augusta, to support the credibility of

his claim of friendship between Niger and Septimius Severus, at that time

governor of Gallia Lugdunensis.170 If the wax writing-tablet from Rottweil

refers to the Bellum Desertorum, it follows that in the Agri Decumates the

revolt was quelled at the latest by August 186.171 As already mentioned, this

document refers to sentences passed by Iuventius Caesianus, legate of Legio

VIII." 

For good examples of inscriptions showing use of Germanic vexillations, we have these:

publication: CIL 03, 10471 = IDRE-02, 00278 = TitAq-01, 00019 = AE 1890, 00082 = AE 1972, +00378 

dating: 208 to 211         EDCS-ID: EDCS-29500130

province: Pannonia inferior         place: Budapest / Aquincum

P() / C(aius) Iul(ius) Sep(timius) Castinus co(n)s(ul) / des(ignatus) leg(atus) Aug[[gg(ustorum)]] pr(o) pr(aetore) / P(annoniae) i(nferioris) leg(atus) (!) I M(inerviae) ex pr(a)ec(epto) dom(inorum) / nn[[n(ostrorum)]] dux vex(illationum) IIII Germ(anicarum) / VIII Aug(ustae) X<X=V>II Pr(imigeniae) I M(inerviae) / XXX Ulp(iae) adver(sus) defec(tores) / et rebel(l)es proco(n)s(ul) / Cretae et Cyr(enarum) iurid(icus) / per Apul(iam) Cal(abriam) Luc(aniam) / Bru(ttios) cur(ator) viae Sal(ariae) / cur(ator) Ae<c=T>lan(ensium) praet(or) / tutel(arius) tr(ibunus) pl(ebis) qu(a)est(or) / tr(ibunus) mil(itum) leg(ionis) I / Ad(iutricis) item V Mac(edonicae)

inscription genus / personal status: Augusti/Augustae;  litterae erasae;  milites;  ordo senatorius;  tituli honorarii;  tria nomina;  viri

material: lapis

publication: EpThess-01, 00045 = LBIRNA 00379 = Legio-XXX, 00151 = AE 1957, 00123 = AE 2010, 01834          EDCS-ID: EDCS-13600193

province: Numidia         place: Lambaesis

[Pr]o salute Invictor(um) Imperr(atorum) Severi et Antonini [[Sanctissi]]/[[[morum] Aug(ustorum)]] et Iuliae Aug(ustae) [[Piae matri(s)]] Aug(ustae) deae Caelestis aedem / [a Lep]ido Tertullo inc(h)o{h}atam p[er]fici curavit Cl(audius) Gallus / [leg(atus)] Augustor(um) pr(o) pr(aetore) co(n)s(ul) design(atus) [d]onatus donis militarib(us) / [ab In]victis Imperr(atoribus) secunda Par[t]hica felicissima expedi/[tio]ne eorum praeposi[t]us vexillationum / [leg(ionum)] IIII Germanicar(um) ex[pe]ditione s(upra) s(cripta) leg(atus) [leg(ionis)] XXII Primig(eniae) curator [ci]vitatis Thessalo/[nice]nsium cum Flavia Silva Prisca c(larissima) f(emina) uxore et / [Fla]vio Catulo Munatiano c(larissimo) p(uero) et Cl(audia) Galitta c(larissima) p(uella) / fili(i)s

inscription genus / personal status: Augusti/Augustae;  litterae erasae;  milites;  mulieres;  ordo decurionum;  tituli honorarii;  tituli operum;  tituli sacri;  tria nomina;  viri

material: lapis

I elsewhere provide Grunewald's discussion of war in Armorica during the period of the Deserters' War (https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/04/can-we-place-lucius-artorius-castus-in.html).

We can then make a good case for Priscus having led German detachments against the deserters in Germany (possibly to relieve the siege of Strasbourg), while LAC took his British force against the enemy in Armorica.  LAC would have been fighting under the auspices of the new governor of Gallia Lugdunensis, Pescennius Niger, who was sent there specifically to deal with the deserters who were ravaging all of Gaul in great numbers

(https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Pescennius_Niger*.html). We might assume operations of a similar kind were being conducted in Spain, the third known area of trouble during the Maternus revolt. 

Obviously, with LAC leading the British vexillations on the Continent, we may assign to him the delegation who went to Rome to urge the removal of Perennis.  Or, if we must stick with the account and have all 1500 actually go to Rome, we would have to assume he did so in pursuit of Maternus, who according to Herodian also went to Rome. 

It is not unreasonable to also allow for LAC playing a role in Ulpius Marcellus's victory over the British tribes in the North c. 184.  Sarmatian troops would have been employed during this event as well.

CONCLUSION:

Someone brought troops from Britain. It wasn't Priscus, because he was already on the Continent. So it if wasn't LAC, then who?  As Roger Tomlin as pointed out, Priscus as praepositus is not going to be taking troops form LAC as dux, even though Priscus was legate of the Macedonian legion. 

There is still some resistance - especially from Roger Tomlin - to the idea that the taking of British legionary detachments to Armorica could actually be an action directed against Maternus' deserters

(see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-death-knell-for-armorican-theory-of.html). Earliier studies chose to emphasize the literary or fictional nature of much of the Maternus story.  However, more recent scholars think that the threat from the deserters and their mixed army was quite a serious one and was tantamount to widespread rebellion.  John S. McHugh, for example, in his COMMODUS: GOD AND GLADIATOR (pp. 95-96), applies this kind of assessment to the event:

Thus ARMORICOS is still in the running as a decent reading for the ARM[..]S of the L. Artorius Castus memorial inscription.  We need only allow for the possibility that Armorica was in such a state of general unrest due to the rebellion taking place there that Castus was justified in carving ADVERSUS ARMORICOS on his stone.  He would have been assigned this region by the governor of Gallia Lugdunensis, Pescennius Niger, who had been appointed to his position precisely to deal with a such an uprising.  Caunius Priscus, on the other hand, with detachments drawn from the German legions, was involved in actions in Germany itself, and quite possibly was sent to assist Strasbourg.  One of two things then happened: either the deserters and their followers were put down and an embassy from the British legionary forces was sent to Rome to complain about Perennis or all 1500 spearmen proceeded to Rome in pursuit of Maternus.  With Maternus dead, they demanded the execution of the Praetorian Prefect - something granted to them by a grateful Emperor.

This scenario does mean, of course, that Castus' procuratorship falls later, rather than sooner.  I have gone to great pains in the past to demonstrate that the most likely foundation date for Liburnia was c. 168. If instead Castus became procurator in the latter half of the 180s, it may be that his role as a loyalist was to protect Italy from a perceived threat represented by Pannonia Inferior.  I discussed before in another context (https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2023/11/a-british-named-cavalry-unit-and-son-of.html) that Perennis' son, perhaps in charge of a Pannonian legion, might have been implicated in a plot against Commodus by the then-governor of Pannonia Inferior, Plotianus.  If the troops of that province were still under suspicion, a paranoid Emperor may have found it wise to install Castus in a buffer province with power of the sword.

If Castus did go to Armorica, then my argument for Sawyl Benisel of Ribchester as the sub-Roman Arthur's father may be allowed to stand.  For my most recent thoughts on this theory, please see

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2023/12/why-i-cannot-shake-off-sawyl-as-arthurs.html.

 

WELL, THIS IS EMBARRASSING... ARM[...]S CAN, IN FACT, BE ARMORICOS

http://db.edcs.eu/epigr/bilder.php?s_language=en&bild=$CIL_03_02809.jpg

I am here to offer an embarrassing confession: I have been horridly misinformed about the small o in large C ligature that would allow the LAC stone to have ARMORICOS.

For the last several weeks, I have been laboring under the misconception that the CO ligature required for ARMORICOS could not, in fact, be found on the stone.  Why?  Well, because a) the ligature was too late in date and b) was found in the wrong part of the Empire.

Well, because I always double-check my sources, I decided to go to the CIL database and search just for those inscribed stones found in Dalmatia between 150 and 200 A.D.  And what did I find?  This:

publication: CIL 03, 02809 = Grbic 00011 

dating: 177 to 180         EDCS-ID: EDCS-28300138

province: Dalmatia         place: Skradin / Scardona

Praetoriu[m vetustate] / conlapsum [3] / Burnistae [3]/ses ex pec(unia) [publ(ica) refecer(unt)] / Scapul[a Tertullus] / leg(atus) Augg(ustorum) p[rov(inciae) Dalmatiae] / restit[uit]

inscription genus / personal status: ordo senatorius;  tituli operum;  tria nomina;  viri

The photo of this stone is found at the top of the page with its relevant link.  The best and most comprehensive discussion of Scapula Tertullus is PROCONSVLES, LEGATI ET PRAESIDES.Rimski namjesnici Ilirika, Gornjeg Ilirika i Dalmacije, pp. 209-210.  Unfortunately, this study is in Bosnian.  I have written to the author, Professor Salmedin Mesihović to see if he can supply me with an English translation of the relevant passages.  Until then, here is the link to his book:

https://books.google.com/books?id=S683AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA210&lpg=PA210&dq=%22Scapula+Tertullus%22%2B%22Dalmatia%22%2B%22179%22&source=bl&ots=u73eaRGnzf&sig=ACfU3U2m1ANd-1Q9paHaaKdIEBm2uegcmw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiWzJKN-NvwAhU7FzQIHRtNBHcQ6AEwEnoECB4QAw#v=onepage&q=%22Scapula%20Tertullus%22%2B%22Dalmatia%22%2B%22179%22&f=false

The style of lettering on the stone is quite good, and uniform.  In many respects it resembles the lettering on the LAC stone.  Its importance cannot be emphasized enough: if the CO ligature was known in Dalmatia at the time of LAC and was used for stones of the elite, we can assume that it may, indeed, have been employed on LAC's stone.

While Scapula's stone is fragmentary, there is no sign that the CO ligature was employed elsewhere on the stone, meaning that it is in isolation from the more standard lettering.  We see some ligatures on this stone that are the same kind used on the LAC stone.  If we thought the o inside the C was not sufficient to fit in ARMORICOS, we could also utilize a simple RI ligature, which would match the 17 other such ligatures found on the LAC stone.  However, the spacing between letters on the stone is not consistent.  We cannot force an arbitrary spacing principle onto the inscription.  Many examples from the stone can be cited to easily refute such a claim.  For this reason, I don't think the RI ligature is necessary and we may easily get by with the CO ligature alone. 

The style of the entire stone must be taken into account.  And we find many examples of letters even within the same line that do not conform to spacing parameters.  So demanding perfect spacing would mean to operate on a false premise. For example, the tight fit of I after the first S of CLASSIS, compared with the wider space between that I and the final S, shows us that we might well have a tight fit on the I in the ARM...S word.  We cannot take one line in isolation and apply what we see there as the design restriction.  This is imposing an artificial convention on the stone.  

Thus the inscription displays plenty of spacing irregularities.  There is no uniform spacing on the stone.  What needs to be put down DICTATES WHAT SPACES NEED TO BE EMPLOYED.  Spaces can serve the same purposes as ligatures, i.e. allowing compression of the text. 

Clearly, as the NTE ligature at the end of the 'ADVERSUS ARM[...]S' line demonstrates, LAC was doing everything in his power to compress this sectio of the inscription.  The fact that he did so suggests that he was taking great pains to write the name of his enemy out in full.  And to do so, he may well have been willing to resort to the CO ligature.  

So what does this mean for our research into LAC's military career?  Especially as we are fairly certain the dating of his memorial stone does not allow ARM[...]S to read ARMENIOS?

Well, simply put, it means we are not justified in proposing the reading of ARMATOS for ARM[...]S.  

We must instead accept ARMORICOS, and work our theory of LAC's military activity in Britain around that established fact.  Something I will be attending to in the near future...  

For now I will only say that I feel confident LAC was in Gaul fighting with British vexillations against the followers of Maternus in the Deserters' War.  How this figures in with the ex-legate of the Sixth, Priscus, who appears to have been doing the same thing at approximately the same time, why, that is as yet to be determined. 

NOTE:

ARMATOS has been universally rejected by every established Latin epigrapher and Roman military historian I have consulted.  I have written extensively on why they refused to accept this proposed reading for ARM[...]S.  I myself only accepted it provisionally - and with extreme reluctance - because I could not find any other word that would fit.  Now, though, with my discovery of the Scapula stone, I can apply the principle of Occam's Razor to ARMATOS. Were I to stubbornly adhere to ARMATOS despite evidence to the contracy, and because I had a preconceived belief I was unwilling to forsake, I would be engaging in intellectual dishonesty.  And that is something I refuse to do.

LAC Stone

Detail of LAC Stone, Showing Remaining /S/ of ARM[...]S

ARMORICOS reconstruction courtesy Alessandro Faggiani

(with just CO ligature)

ARMORICOS reconstruction courtesy Alessandro Faggiani

(with both RI and CO ligatures)

WHY LUCIUS ARTORIUS CASTUS WAS NEVER 'DE FACTO' GOVERNOR OF BRITAIN

Britons Attacking Hadrian's Wall

Over the last few days, I have been engaging in an intense converesation with Alessandro Faggiani, co-author of "Missing Pieces: A New Reading of the Main Lucius Artorius Castus Inscription", Journal of Indo-European Studies, 2019 (https://www.jies.org/).  The authors claim that LAC became the de facto governor of Britain between the tenures of Pertinax and Albinus.

There is really no basis for this claim.  Their idea is fairly straight-forward: LAC was dux of the three entire legions and not vexillations.  There were no senators available for the post of governor because Commodus had given their offices to equestrians (like LAC). After Pertinax asked Commodus to return to Rome, Castus ruled the legions and the province.

I really don't know where to start here, but I will try.  Firstly, as an example of the title dux of legions being used prior to the time of LAC to prove governorship of a province, Faggiani referred me to this inscription:

http://db.edcs.eu/epigr/epi_einzel.php?s_sprache=de&p_belegstelle=CIL%2008%2C%2009365&r_sortierung=Belegstelle&fbclid=IwAR0O98UYU0h7eiNqPUArStEscPyQalKJm1c1Q4zzzwPCg-_Fn6pqCj0Vtcs

Dated to the reign of Marcus Aurelius, Commodus' predecessor, it tells of a senator who styles himself 'consul and dux of the three Dacias.' I was puzzled as to how this inscription helped Faggiani's argument.  He then explained that a) Commodus had replaced the legates in Britain with equestrians, allowing us to equate LAC with Sextus Cornelius Clemens and b) the use of dux here proved that the title could be used in the early period for governor. He then sent me  CIL 02, 04114, another consul and senator of the very late 2nd century who held the dux title as a special command against rebels and public enemies. 

Okay.  Understood. But here is my problem with all this.  First, if we are to propose that no senators were available, we have to ask where Ulpius Marcellus, Pertinax and Albinus came from.  All three were senators and were appointed governors of Britain by Commodus.  It was once believed that Ulpius Marcellus had either served two almost back to back terms as governor or that there were two identically named men serving those terms.  However, thanks to the Benwell inscription, we now know that he actually served several years consecutively.  It has similarly been assumed that there was a gap between Pertinax and Albinus, but there is no great difficulty in allowing for Pertinax to have served as governor for over five years, especially with the internal problems the province was experiencing.  Thus there may be no gap at all between Pertinax and Albinus.  Anthony Birley himself did not think this was impossible.

Second, in claiming that LAC was dux of three legions because he could have been just like Clemens with his Dacias is wrong.  As senator and consul, Clemens is saying that those ranks make him commander of the three Dacias.  While commander of the legions of those provinces may be implied, it is not stated.  More importantly, Faggiani and his colleagues are trying to prove LAC a governor when the context in which dux of three British legions is found precludes this conclusion from being made.  For LAC specifically states he commanded the legionary force AGAINST (ADVERSUS) an enemy (ARM[...]S).  This means that his role of dux was a special command given to a junior officer, an officer assigned a temporary military task.  Had LAC instead merely said 'dux of three legions', well, we might then be left scratching our heads and give pause.  But he does not say that.  He goes out of his way to tell us that he was leading the legionary force against someone - NOT THAT HE WAS GOVERNOR OF BRITAIN! Nor does he call himself dux Britanniarum, 'commander of Britain' (to borrow a later phrase).  

As for the three legions, I have over and over explained that an entire legionary complement would never be taken anywhere - either inside or outside of Britain.  Tomlin, in considering the possibility that LAC may have been fighting in the North, rightly judged that as prefect of the Sixth, LAC may well have led that entire legion, but that we can only allow for vexillations from the other two to be supplementing it.  Had this been done (and I have adequately accounted for this happening in the context of the A.D. 180 disaster, when several British tribes broke through the Wall, killing the legate of the Sixth and many of his men), LAC would have been justified in writing three legions on his stone.  Otherwise, he would have had to write that he was dux of the Sixth (or of the same, as he had just previously written prefect of the Sixth), plus vexillations from the other two British legions (whose names he might have had to supply).  Given space requirements, he short-handed this to 'three British legions.'  Never, ever, even in an emergency such as was happening in the North, would all three legions have been withdrawn entirely from their bases at the same time.

The only reason for refusing to accept LAC's leading of the Sixth with generous detachments from the other two British legions is the stubborn insistence on viewing LAC as governor.  But he was not claiming to be governor, as I have explained above.  He was claiming to be taking a large legionary force against an enemy, which automatically guarantees that he was a junior officer performing a special military task of a temporary nature.  

Another point must be raised, and I believe this to be quite damaging to Faggiani's argument.  Our evidence strongly suggests that Priscus, legate of the Sixth legion, whose troops try to raise to the purple following the successful completion of the British War in 184, is transferred to a command of the Macedonian legion.  This is a very brief assignment, as he is shortly thereafter leading British vexillations in the Deserters' War, and it is in all likelihood some of his troops that go to Rome to execute Perennis. Perennis, the Praetorian Prefect under Commodus who was blamed for replacing legates with prefects, is not killed until 185.  That means that while Perennis was still alive, we have a senatorial legate still in place in Britain.  

Once Perennis was killed, his policy concerning the replacement of senators with equestrians was reversed.  Yet Faggiani is declaring that between Pertinax and Albinus, there were no senators available for the governorship of Britain! Pertinax's tenure as British governor started in 185.

So, what we have is a theory that proposes that after Perennis had been killed, partly at least for replacing legates with equestrians, and after that policy had been reversed, and AFTER the tenure of Pertinax, there were no senators in the entire Roman world who could be appointed as governor of Britain.  It's as if the entire senatorial class had suddenly ceased to exist. Bear in mind I am playing Devil's Advocate here, because as I've already discussed above, there is a good chance the supposed gap between Pertinax and Albinus did not exist.  If it did not, there is no need to put forward the equestrian governor LAC.

Having dispensed with all that nonsense, there is only one question left for us to ask: at what point did LAC become commander of legionary forces against ARM-? Well, there are only two events we know of in the extant sources that we could make cases for.  I once flirted with the idea that LAC, prefect of the Sixth, may have replaced Priscus, legate of the Sixth.  But if this is so, and LAC became dux at this point, we must bear in mind the British war was over.  He would have had to be leading his legionary force against mutinous Roman soldiers.  But it is unlikely these would have been referred to as simply ARMATOS, the best reading we have at present for that fragmentary ARM[...]S on his memorial stone.  In truth, if Priscus were the legate of the Sixth, as seems most likely, it was the Sixth that was threatening mutiny, as they had tried to raise their legate to the purple.  That such a legion would have then been sent with a new commander against its own soldiers makes little sense.  In fact, it is quite nonsensical. 

For this reason, we must default to the invasion of the British tribes across the Wall in 180.  If the legate of the Sixth had been killed, and many soldiers of the Sixth, it would have been a natural development for LAC, prefect of the Sixth, to have been made dux over that legion, whose depleted condition was bolstered by large detachments from the other two British legions.