It was not King Arthur. This king is best known as Caractacus or Caratacus, the version of his name the Romans had used. He was resurrected as a hero of the British Empire in the 19th century because of his bravery in fighting a massive Empire, being British and being a noble, well-spoken loser. Even so, he is nowhere near as famous as King Arthur. The original name is thought to have been something like Caratauc or Caratacos. It is derived from a root meaning "beloved" like the modern Welsh cariad. Old Welsh has Caratauc, which became Caradoc. Modern Welsh has Caradog. Old Breton has Caratoc. The surviving Irish form of the name of Caradoc is Carthach or Carthaigh. The modern surnames Carthy and O'Carthy come from the same name. McCarthy derives from "mac Carthaigh" - son of Caratauc.
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| Caractacus at the Tribunal of Claudius at Rome Engraving by Andrew Birrell of a painting by Henry Fuseli, 1792 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division |
More after the break.
The cause of the Roman Invasion
"Fert Britannia aurum et argentum et alia metalla, pretium victoriae."
"Britain yields gold and silver and other metals, worth the victory."
Tacitus De vita Agricolæ XII:6
The father of Caradoc was Cunobelinus, a leader so powerful in Southern Britain that the Romans referred to him as Brittanorum rex, "King of the Britons". He led the Catuvellauni (Vellaunus' smiters or battlers), which may have been formed from a federation of related tribes by his ancestor Vellaunus of the Cassi (or Cassivellaunus) in response to the invasion by Julius Caesar in 55 BC.
Vellaunus was a curiously uncommon god in Romanised Celtic inscriptions. We only have a couple of inscriptions to him from across Europe that survived from that era. Perhaps Vellaunus was just a spelling variant of Belinus. Cunobelinus was named after this vastly more popular god. Belinus/Belenus was one of the most widely worshipped Celtic gods. Thus the confederation of tribes would have been the Catubelini and its founder Cassibelinus. I will be using the traditional spelling of Catuvellauni throughout, despite Catubelini looking better on the page.
Tincommius was king of the Atrebates, a tribe to the west of the Catuvellauni. He was deposed by his younger brother Eppillus before 7 AD. Tincommius visited Rome to appeal to Emperor Augustus for help in being restored to the throne. Augustus was far too preoccupied with trying to control the German border with three legions while also crushing the rebellious Dalmatians and Pannonians (in the Balkans, now Albania and several ex-Yugoslav countries) with up to eight legions. Starting another war for a distant associate in a land known to be full of savage nutters would leave the other provinces of his vast empire short of "peace"keepers.
Eppillus of the Atrebates was in his turn deposed by a younger brother named Verica. Eppillus may then have overthrown the king of the Cantiaci (in modern Kent).
Dubnovellaunus, king of the Trinovantes, also appealed to Augustus for help before 7 AD. He had been overthrown by Cunobelinus of the Catuvellauni.
Verica had his right to be king recognised by the Emperor of Rome (as the rights of his two brothers had been recognised before). Verica had been king of the Atrebates for ten years before the war with Epatticus began. Even before the death of his father, Caradoc had been taking the territory of the neighbouring tribes. Caradoc followed his uncle Epatticus in taking territory from the Atrebates. After another 15 years Verica was finally defeated by Caradoc. Verica then made his way to Rome and appealed for help from the Emperor Claudius in about 42 AD.
The Invasion
Claudius decided a good war would help his popularity with the people. Exotic and familiar foods, goods and slaves were the fuel that kept the proles from rioting and the senators from stabbing Emperors in the back. Aulus Plautius led the Emperor's army in an invasion at the start of the good sailing and warfare weather of 43 AD. Officially, the invasion was to help their ally Verica to regain his kingship of the Atrebates.
Caradoc and the army of the Catuvellauni were taken by surprise by the rapid invasion. The Roman army was much-improved since Julius Caesar's time. The first battle lasted two days and then the British were pushed back to the Thames and never recovered. It is uncertain if Caradoc's brother Togodumnus died in the battle or went on to become a client king of Rome. In his Roman History Cassius Dio may have been saying that Cunobelinus, the father of the two brothers, was dead or that Togodumnus was dead, it is difficult to be sure. I don't know Ancient Greek grammar, only a few nouns. Eleven tribes surrendered to the Romans. Caradoc fled west.
Soon after the invasion the Romans were mining lead, silver, copper, iron and tin. It is thought now that the name Britain could be derived from the Punic word for tin, pretan. Eire was possibly named from copper. There was a small but short-lived Roman gold mine in Wales but gold was not as abundant as the Romans had hoped. Perhaps all the Cornish gold had been mined out and sent to Ireland.
Not all Romans approved of the lust for gold. Though, perhaps it should be taken into account that disapproval of anything and everything was a common Roman pastime.
‘Gold is accursed by reason of the hunger with which it is sought, censured and reviled by all really good men, and discovered only to be a scourge to life’
Pliny Natural History xxxiii: 3
Camulodunum
After the defeat of Caradoc the Romans renamed Camulodunum (fort of the war god Camulos), the former capital of Caradoc. As Colonia Claudia Victricensis (Colony Town, place of Claudius' Victory) it was rebuilt as a typical Roman town including a temple to the divine Claudius. They garrisoned it with legions of veterans. Colonia Claudia Victricensis became one of the largest cities in Roman Britain. The modern name of the town is Colchester (Colony Fort - the earliest form may have been in the probably 9th century Historia Brittonum's Cair Collon/Colun, then the tenth century Colenceaster, Colneceastre). The name of Colchester shares a similar origin to that of modern German Köln (Cologne), which in 50AD was the Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium.
The Resistance
Caradoc fled to the Silures, who were occupying parts of what is now South Wales and the Welsh Marches. The Silures made him their warlord and they continued their fight against the Roman invasion. Tacitus noted that they made alliances with others such as the Ordovices "who hated our peace". The Roman commentators were well aware of the nature of the Roman Peace (pax Romana) and how it affected those who had been invaded by it. Tacitus acknowledged that though the Silures under Caradoc were inferior in number to the Romans they were aided by the deceptiveness of the terrain. The British had some success and some failures in their guerrilla warfare.
The final battle came in 51 AD. The site is very much disputed as the remaining evidence is too slight to prove anything. However, to keep it simple I will just mention Caer Caradoc by the village of Leintwardine in north Herefordshire. There is a Roman fort near Jay Lane covering over 5 acres (over 2 hectares) built at some time between 47 and 54 AD. The supply depot at Brandon Camp hillfort may have been made at the same time or shortly before. This area was at the meeting point of the territories of three major British tribes - the Dobunni, the Ordovices and the Cornovii. A civil settlement called Bravonium was started here about 20 years after the battle, on the Roman road now called Watling Street West. There are ten Iron Age hill forts within ten miles of the site of Bravonium including the one known as Caer Caradoc, the Fort of Caratauc.
If you want to know the details of the battle the English translation is here. The only interesting bit to me is that the Romans used the famous tortoise manoeuvre (testudo) to save themselves from attack from above while tearing down a dry-stone wall.
Betrayal
Tacitus does not say how Caradoc escaped the battlefield and contacted the Brigantes who lived north of Chester. His next line is, simply:
There is seldom safety in adversity, he put his trust in Cartimandua,
he was attacked, chained and delivered to the conquerors.
In his History Tacitus tells us that Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes was well rewarded for having captured Caradoc and delivered him to the Roman army. Caradoc would take the leading rôle in the triumphal procession in Rome. It is thought that Cartimandua's capital was at the Stanwick Iron Age Fort near Darlington in Yorkshire. An abundance of Roman luxuries have been found there that appear to date from 40 to 70 AD, They include over 200 pieces of Roman ceramics, window glass, glass vessels and tiles. Perhaps some of these rich remains were the payment for her betrayal.
Cartimandua had been Queen of the Brigantes in her own right by birth. Having betrayed Caradoc she became much richer and more certain of her alliance with Rome. So, she separated from her husband Venutius, who was king of the Carvetii in his own right. Cartimandua then "shared her bed and throne" with her ex-husband's armour-bearer (armiger) Vellocatus in about 57 AD. This was unpopular with the Brigantes and many joined her ex in battle against her. Cartimandua called in the help of a Roman legion who defeated her ex on the battlefield. In 69 AD Venutius took advantage of the turmoil in the Year of the Four Emperors to launch another attack. Rome could only send a small group of auxiliaries who rescued their client queen and took her to safety in Chester (Deva Victrix). After this Queen Cartimandua disappears from history. Venutius ruled for a short while before the Romans defeated him and took over direct rule of the Brigantes.
This very public high-conflict divorce would have been famous at the time and remembered afterwards. Perhaps that is what inspired the story of Guinevere and Lancelot, confused into the story of Arthur.
In Rome
Caradoc was famous across Western Europe and even in Rome after 8 years of resistance against the Roman legions. Everyone wanted to see him in the triumphal procession in Rome. The usual procedure would be for the defeated king to be put to death in the circus in front of a huge audience.
The speech of Caradoc to the Emperor Claudius in Rome as reported by Tacitus in The Annals proved that Caradoc was capable of producing very good Latin rhetoric. His family had almost certainly had important diplomatic and trade contacts with the Romans in Gaul for the previous century. They may even have employed Latin-speaking tutors for their children. Holding his head high Caradoc declaimed to the Emperor:
Had my moderation in prosperity been equal to my noble birth and fortune, I should have entered this city as your friend rather than as your captive; and you would not have disdained to receive, under a treaty of peace, a king descended from illustrious ancestors and ruling many nations. My present lot is as glorious to you as it is degrading to myself. I had men and horses, arms and wealth. What wonder if I parted with them reluctantly? If you Romans choose to lord it over the world, does it follow that the world is to accept slavery? Were I to have been at once delivered up as a prisoner, neither my fall nor your triumph would have become famous. My punishment would be followed by oblivion, whereas, if you save my life, I shall be an everlasting memorial of your clemency.
Claudius, being a bit of a softie compared to most of the Roman Emperors, had Caradoc and his family released from their bonds and pardoned them. Unfortunately for the Romans the Silures were even more determined to fight after Caradoc's capture and were successful for a few more years. Part of the Silurian success was due to the Romans having relaxed their guard. They had expected things to be quiet for a while with Caradoc gone.
Legend
There are only two real sources of information about King Caradoc. The Roman and Greek reports of the wars in Britain give a very one-sided view. The rest of our knowledge comes from archaeology, especially finds of coins.
There seem to be few traces surviving in the legends of Britain about Caradoc unless they are under the name Arthur. There were characters called Caradoc in the mediæval romances and Arthurian legends but they are generally thought to be later people who were named after the King. Caradoc became a popular Welsh name very quickly. The Harleian genealogies in Harleian MS 3859 (probably written in the early to middle 11th century) give us an Old Welsh genealogy listing Caratauc map Cinbelin map Teuhant which seems to mirror Caratacos son of Cunobelinos son of Tasciovanos. Unfortunately, the genealogy then goes to Teuhant map Constantis map Constantini magni map Constantini map Galerii map Diocletiani which is clearly the succession of the Eastern Roman Emperors, then continuing back to Tiberius. The Roman Emperor Tiberius was in turn, apparently, descended from a line of ninth century British mythical monarchs including King Lear's father. I think a copyist must have turned over two pages at once. Whether the "father" of Teuhant would be Constantine II, Constantius II or Constans (all three of whom started their reign as emperor in 337 AD) is, thankfully, immaterial.
The likelihood that Caradoc had the son called Guidgen mentioned in these unreliable genealogies is unfortunately low. Though if his wife gave birth while they were engaged in guerrilla warfare, perhaps they might have called their child "born of trees". The modern form of Guidgen is Gwyddien or Gwydion. Guidgen is given as father of Lou hen. If so, he may be the same Gwydion from the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi, uncle (? sort of, a very strange story) of Lleu Llaw Gyffes.
In the 12th century Geoffrey of Monmouth's The History of the Kings of Britain had King Arthur defeating the Romans under the fictional Emperor Lucius Tiberius (or Hiberius) and becoming Emperor himself. The real Emperor Claudius' first name was Tiberius.
Avalon
Roman Italy was renowned for its large-scale production of huge and sweet apples. The Greeks had preserved good varieties of apples by taking cuttings and the Lesbian philosopher and botanist Theophrastus mentions 6 varieties being grown in the 3rd century BC. The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder mentions over 20 varieties. The Britons of Caradoc's time only knew their wild crab-apples.
There was one town in Roman Italy particularly famous for its apples and hazelnuts. The town is now called Avella. In Roman times it was called Abella and is found in Campania, 24 kilometres inland from Naples. Abella was so famous for its hazelnuts that the filberts were known in Latin as nuces avellanae, abellana nux, abellina or avellana. The name avellana is still used for all hazelnuts in Spanish. In Portuguese they are avelã and in Romanian alună. Avellana is used for the filbert type of hazelnut in Italian, aveline is filbert in French.
“Et quos maliferae despectant moenia Abellae,”
"And where apple-trees are overlooked by Abella's city walls"
as described by the Cisalpine Gallic Roman poet Publius Vergilius Maro (aka Virgil, died 19 BC). Æneid 7, 740.
The old town of Avella was on a steep hill looking down on the plain. It may be stretching the few facts we have a bit much to propose that Abella was an island amongst a sea of apple-trees, suggesting the Insula Pomorum, an alternative name for Avalon used by Geoffrey of Monmouth. However, that is what I am suggesting.
In 87 BC Abella was destroyed by the Nolans as revenge for siding with the Romans. The Romans then colonised Abella. It underwent "centuriation", being the parcelling out of land to retired Roman soldiers, freed slaves and other imperial beneficiaries. These veterans and their families would have formed a loyal and experienced neighbourhood where, perhaps, a retired guerrilla king who was an ex-enemy of the state could be kept under a watchful eye. Claudius was surely too canny to let a revolting king stay in Rome, the centre of intrigue. A king with a good grasp of politics, strategy and the Latin language could still be dangerous there.
It is nice to think the old king might have had a peaceful retirement on an estate growing apples and hazelnuts in the Campanian hills. History makes no more mention of Caradoc after his meeting with Emperor Claudius. We don't know when Caradoc was born. Perhaps the old British king survived long enough to see the terrible eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD that would destroy so many neighbours down by the coast.
Merlin
Merlin was another addition to the Arthurian legends made in the 12th Century but was instantly as popular as if he was Watson to Arthur's Holmes.
Myrddin Wylt was a nobleman and bard of the 6th Century who suffered extreme PTSD after taking part in one of the Three Futile Battles of Britain. Myrddin had killed his nephew who was fighting on the other side. He fled into the woods and lived as a wild man. He was "gifted" with prophetic visions, though they may have just been very traumatic dreams.
A graveyard thought to be for nobles of the Catuvellauni tribe was found at Stanway, 4 miles from ancient Camulodunum. The grave of a medic from about 43 to 50 AD was excavated in 1996. The grave goods were quite fancy. Though some archaeologists told the press that the grave might be that of a druid, there is no evidence to suggest this and plenty of evidence that the occupant of the grave was either from the Roman Empire or a Briton who had been trained in medicine by someone from the Roman Empire and taken on many of the trappings of Roman life. Some commentators on this matter seem to think that anything pre-Invasion cannot be Roman, despite the well-known existence of Roman luxuries and cultural influences in Britain before the actual military Invasion.
I am going to detail the grave goods just to show how Roman they are. If you might be bored by the repetition of "So obviously not a druid" skip this section.
The Doctor's Game: A wooden gaming board with brass fittings. The wooden board has rotted away but is thought to have been inscribed with 8 x 12 squares. The fittings suggest the board was 38.5 cm (~15 inches) by 56.5 cm (~22¼ inches). Allowing for a rim of 2.5 cm (~1 inch) the squares could have been 4.5 cm (~1¾ inch) on each side.
Two sets of 13 glass pieces were placed in two rows of 12 with one of each set nearer the middle. There were 13 of opaque white glass and 13 of opaque robin's egg blue glass tinted with cobalt oxide.
It was suggested by those who believed that the occupant of the grave was a druid that this was a British native game used for "divination". The game was quite clearly made in the Roman Empire if not at Rome itself. Brass was only regularly made in Rome by 25 BC, and was not made in Britain until the 2nd century AD.
The glass pieces were analysed and found to be standard Roman glass. There was a popular Roman game at the time that was played on a 8 x 12 board called latrunculi, latrones, or ludus latrunculorum (game of little bandits). The first surviving mention of ludus latrunculorum is from Marcus Terentius Varro in his De Lingua Latina (X:22) from the 1st century BC. It was a game of strategy like a smaller version of Go. No dice were used. No dice were found in the Stanway grave. Any game of divination would surely need a random number generator of some kind to allow the gods to show their hand. It is thought that the opponent's pieces were taken by placing two of your pieces on either side of them. Ovid in his Ars Amatoria (Art of Love, 3:358, written around the turn of BC to AD,) writes:
"unus cum gemino calculus hoste perit"
"one with twin enemy pieces perishes"
This game seems similar to the ancient Greek game called petteia, pessoi or poleis and the modern Egyptian game of Seega. Seega is often mistakenly reported as being an ancient Egyptian game, perhaps because the boards have often been carved into ancient temple flagstones.
Ovid in his Ars Amatoria (Art of Love) (2:207-8) wrote that when playing games you should let the lady you are playing win:
"...sive latrocinii sub imagine calculus ibit,
fac pereat vitreo miles ab hoste tuus"
"..or if the piece be marching under the semblance of a robber's band
let your warrior fall before his glassy foe."
It does not seem necessary to invent an unknown British game when the game board is clearly Roman and fits a known Roman game, assuming one spare glass counter on each side. Though the rules of ludus latrunculorum are lost, a game has been invented around the board and counters found at Stanway. It is played at the Colchester Roman Circus, a chariot and blood theme park. They have called the game Aquila, the Latin word for eagle.
Surgical kit: A set of 13 surgical instruments in copper alloy and iron. There are no other surgical kits of this age found in Britain and few anywhere in the Roman Empire. There were probably other items that have rotted away as they would have been made of organic materials, such as bandages. Some have pointed out that the set of instruments differed subtly from standard Roman surgical kits. That is probably because Roman kits were not standardised until the 2nd century AD. All the usual instruments are present. As the medical historian Ralph Jackson stated: "There is no doubt that the healer who used the Stanway instrumentarium was in contact with Roman medical practitioners, and he [? as far as I know, gender unknown] was probably versed in the precepts of classical medicine." The Stanway kit had more iron parts. Roman kits had more bronze. Perhaps local blacksmiths had made replacements for the bronze originals.
Bronze patera or libation bowl: A Roman item for Roman customs, though possibly made locally as bronzesmiths were active in Britain at the time.
Four brass rods in pairs of unequal length and four iron rods in pairs of unequal length: As the archaeologists could not think of any use for these they suggested they were for "divination" in some native druid rituals. As they are of quite pure brass (93% copper:7% zinc) they were certainly Roman-made and imported, with the iron rods possibly being local copies made as spares. I don't know what they are either but... the fishtail-shaped end would be perfect for scraping herbs carried up in the froth of a boiling infusion back into the body of boiling water before they burn on the rim. Stirring rods may be different lengths according to size of the vessel or the heat of the fire underneath.
Various bits of bronze.
Two bronze brooches: One patterned with tin.
Samian ware bowl and other pottery dinner service: Classic Roman ceramics.
Wine amphora: Surely druids preferred mead made from native honey started fermenting with a branch of ivy? Roman wine from Roman grapes was a luxury for British nobles becoming Romanised in their tastes. Perhaps also kept to use in the many Roman treatments that called for wine on its own or to extract the healing compounds from the herbs.
Jet bead: While jet may seem to be a distinctively British product, Roman jet was also sourced from Spain, Portugal, France and the Rhineland. Even Roman jet jewelry worked in York (less than 50 miles from Whitby) may have been made from Spanish jet. The Iron Age Britons did not seem to use jet. Roman production of jet in Britain did not seem to start until the 2nd century AD. This and one other find in Colchester itself of the same age would seem to be imports from the continent. Jet was often but not always associated with women in burials. Jet information from Objects and Identities: Roman Britain and the North-western Provinces Hella Eckardt (Oxford University Press, 2014)
Spouted strainer bowl: Some flowers of the genus Artemisia were found plugging the spout of a "spouted strainer bowl". This large lidless teapot was made from very thin bronze soldered with lead/tin alloy. Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) is the commonest wild Artemisia in Britain. Mugwort flowers had many medical uses and were traditionally esteemed in Scotland for use against tuberculosis and other lung afflictions. As recommended by mermaids. Perhaps the winter at Camulodunum with its harsh North Sea winds was too much for a medicus used to warmer climates and this was the remains of their last self-medication to cure a fatal cough. Other species of Artemisia have also been used medicinally across Europe and were well known to the Romans and Greeks. Pliny lists the many uses they had for the Artemisia genus; the four kinds of absinthium, sea wormwood and an unidentified group of mugworts.
Some readers might prefer Merlin to have been a mystical druid sacrificing children to his god in a sacred grove or a mad bard plagued by visions and raving in the deep forests. A Roman-trained British (or Spanish or German or Greek or Syrian or Lybian or Nubian or Illyrian) medicus skilled in herblore and philosophy and literature who taught Caradoc about the ways of exotic animals and plants and peoples would be much cooler, in my opinion. The human remains are just ashes, we do not know the gender, birthplace or age of the person in that grave.
Why is this not well known?
It seems that some of these facts I have given above, even ignoring all my speculation, would make Caradoc an obvious candidate for the historical nucleus of the Arthur myths. So why isn't he brought up when Arthur is discussed?
a) Essex is not so romantic a setting as Cornwall and the Welsh Marches. Perhaps in Caradoc's time Camelot(unum) was a bustling, cosmopolitan city full of wonders and ancient tales that every village child dreamed of visiting. Now Colchester is a normal town with normal shops and features as the background to reality shows on Channel 4. Unlike the spectacular ruined castle of Tintagel perched on sea-cliffs on the pixie-plagued peninsula of legend, ancient tin mines and magical holidays.
b) Where are Guinevere, Morgana and the other women? Traditional historians, being by nature misogynistic, do not record the name of Caradoc's wife and children. Morgana started off as a good, supernatural healer before being changed in later versions into the villainess of Arthur's story. The only woman's name we know in Caradoc's story is the villain of his story, Queen Cartimandua. Perhaps she was really a heroine in her own stories, we will probably never know.
c) Where is Excalibur (and that other sword, the one in the stone)? The two swords are essential parts of the Arthur myths as we now know them, though they were not mentioned until the 12th century. We know nothing of King Caradoc's weapons. We can assume that he had at least one favourite sword, perhaps several. The earliest name for the sword we know as Excalibur was probably Caledfwlch which apparently means "hard chopper" or "cruel notcher".
I am sure that I read once that there was a tradition among some Celts in Europe when they first became warriors. They would stand their sword upright by burying the tip in the ground. They would then address the sword poetically or sing to it and dance to show their dedication to the ways of war. When they drew the sword out of the earth they had become a warrior. Unfortunately I read (or dreamt) this a long time ago and now I can't find any reference to this practise.
What of the sword given by the Lady of the Lake? Was this just a memory of the common practice of throwing weapons, jewelry and other expensive things into lake and rivers? Archaeologists have found countless water offerings across the whole of Britain. Caradoc probably did throw his favourite sword into a river or lake as an offering to the gods of the otherworld, perhaps after his final battle.
If I were to write history as it should have been... King Caradoc was from a bold new generation of British kings with an education in Latin, logic and philosophy. Perhaps the atheist philosophy of the Romans and Greeks allowed him to reassess his own culture. Perhaps he was just bold enough to challenge the gods though he still believed in them. Knowing a legendary and good quality steel sword had been sacrificed in a sacred lake he dived into that lake and retrieved it. When challenged he stated that he could not have retrieved the sword without the help of the goddess of the lake, who handed him the sword herself. She had, in fact, given him the sword. Even if the logic of this was worrying to his warriors they would have been in awe of a hero so daring as to take a sword from the otherworld. The sword itself would have been respected and feared like no other. Of course, it would have to be returned to the sacred lake/otherworld when the king was defeated.
d) The Holy Grail plays a massive part in the myths of Arthur that we now know. Like the swords, the Grail was not added to the stories until at least the 12th century AD.
e) Where is Merlin? Who doesn't love a story with a wizard in it? As I remark above, Merlin was not part of Arthur's story until much later.
f) How do you explain Pendragon? I don't. There was a Welsh ruler in the 6th century AD, Maelgwyn Gwynedd, referred to as the "dragon of the isle" (insularis draco) by Gildas. This is now assumed to mean that he ruled Anglesey as well as Gwynedd. The earliest mention we have of "Pendragon" is from a document of 1275AD, which might be a copy of an original from about 1200AD. This referred to Uther Pendragon, and translated Pendragon from "Brutisc" (British) to "Englisc" as Draken-hefd ("Dragon's head").
g) Christianity was seen as an integral part of the Arthur stories for the last 900 years. Arthur was a Christian Romano-British king fighting the forces of Saxon barbarian darkness. Seeing him as an empire-building pagan Celtic king who tried to repel an invasion by the relatively more civilised but still pagan Romans just after the apparent death of Christ is a difficult leap.
There is a very late tale that Caradoc's children converted to Christianity and brought Christianity to Britain. This story is found no earlier than the 18th Century and is as fanciful as those that claim Caradoc was baptised by Joseph of Arimathea while still in Britain.
h) We have seen so many films and TV programmes with King Arthur's knights in plate armour and chainmail with heraldic designs and living in Norman or Concentric castles. We are accustomed to Arthur appearing to be in the 14th Century. It is enough of a shock seeing an adventurous "reimagining" set in the 6th, 7th or 8th Centuries just after the Romans left Britain.
Some modern archaeologists and historians are lobbying for the ancient Britons to be seen as having their own civilisation and not being barbarians. Not as luxurious and extravagant in their architecture and engineering as the Romans. They did, however, build roads and forts. The Britons did not write much down but they had vast oral histories kept by bards and druids specialised in memorising them. They probably had a good knowledge of herbal medicine of which some may have survived to later tradition such as the legendary Physicians of Myddfai.
However, Dio Cassio reports that, after being released from captivity, Caradoc went sightseeing in Rome (literally translated this was "visiting... ...to see for himself the greatness and splendour of the city"). Caradoc, King of the Britons, commented:
With possessions such as these around us here, why covet our little huts?
Conclusion
Who knows?
Unless we get some startling new archaeological finds or someone turns up a copy of the missing chapters of Tacitus' works that cover the invasion of Britain we are unlikely to get any more information on this story. The Irish names Carthy, O'Carthy and MacCarthy show how easily the name Caratauc could have shape-shifted into Arthur. Obviously many other traditions and legends were added over time. Over a thousand years, stories that are only spoken will get garbled and other stories will be added. I am reasonably certain that the memory of the historical King Caradoc was the nucleus for the aggregation of stories of the mythical King Arthur.
I hope this theory does not lead to yet another Hollywood film in the interminable variations on the King Arthur legends. The only upside of that would be, if they were quick, they might get Derek Jacobi to play the old Emperor Claudius once more. This time without makeup.
If the connection is true then at least we can add a rather cute origin of Arthur's name to the legend. There have been many theories about the origin of the name Arthur, whether from Brittonic, Latin, Messapian or Etruscan. We can now assume it comes from Caratauc, in the Catuvellauni dialect of Old Brittonic. Like modern Welsh cariad and cariadog it means "Dearest", "Darling" or "Sweetheart". The Legendary Hero, King Sweetheart of the Britons.
