The Mammoth Book of King Arthur

by Mike Ashley

  3. The revolting British!

  Over the next ten years there was an uneasy peace in Britain, but in 207 rebellion erupted again of sufficient magnitude that the emperor Septimius Severus came to Britain with his sons Caracalla and Geta. Cassius Dio records that Severus was determined to conquer the whole of Britain once and for all, but as ever the tactics of the enemy north of the wall made this impossible. Cassius Dio reports that Severus lost up to 50,000 men, which, though surely an exaggeration, shows the scale of the problem.

  The campaign stretched out over three years until Severus’s death in York in February 211. His son Caracalla, who had hated this enforced stay in Britain, was anxious to return to Rome to secure the transfer of power. Somehow he reached peace terms with the Caledonii. The exact nature of this is not known, but he was able to secure a handover of more territory, possibly the area of Fife, where a new fort was secured at Carpow. The area between the walls seems to have come under Roman command even if it was never formally part of the Empire. It was probably patrolled by the Votadini, who remained loyal to Rome.

  Caracalla also enacted plans prepared by his father to divide Roman Britain in two. This meant there were now two governors rather than one, with less power and less troops at their command. Severus had been determined not to see a repetition of the Albinus affair. From 211 onwards Britain was divided into Britannia Superior in the south, with its capital at London, and Britannia Inferior with its capital at York. The dividing line ran from the Wash to the Dee, skirting south to avoid the Pennines. Britannia Superior was the larger area, as well as the more wealthy and peaceful, and had two legions, whereas Britannia Inferior was essentially a military zone with a minimum of settled civilian life, and had one legion augmented by many auxiliary troops. Although Caracalla has passed into history as a brutal and wayward emperor, his peace arrangements in Britain were effective, allowing Britain to develop and prosper over the next seventy years.

  We can skim over the next fifty years or so, pausing only to mention that whilst Britain experienced a period of unusual calm, the rest of the Roman empire was plunged into turbulence with a succession of minor and short-lived emperors. During this period there was an off-shoot Gallic Empire, which included France and Britain, and which lasted from 260–274. A brief stability was restored under the dual control of Diocletian and Maximian, from 285, but soon after the Empire faced another rebel who used Britain as his base. This was Carausius.

  During the third century, and especially from 260 onwards, the Roman borders became subject to raids and incursions from Germanic tribes. It led to several British cities being walled, and stronger defences created around the British coast, with new forts at Reculver in Kent and Brancaster in Norfolk. This was the start of what later became known as the “Saxon shore”. The port of Dover was also rebuilt and the Roman fleet was strengthened to patrol the Channel against Saxon and Frankish pirates. Carausius, based in Gaul, at Boulogne, was placed in charge of that fleet, and was thus the prototype of a later official post called the Count of the Saxon Shore. He was a canny individual, popular with his troops, and not averse to a little piracy of his own. He often waited until after the barbarian raid and then captured the ships, keeping the booty for himself. When Maximian learned of this he ordered Carausius’s arrest, but Carausius used his popularity and declared himself Emperor in 286, shifting his base to Britain. Carausius seems to have been readily accepted by the British, perhaps because he was a Celt rather than a Roman. In any case the British had by now built a reputation for supporting any rebel against Rome. Carausius may well have intended to restore the Gallic Empire, since he kept a hold on Boulogne for as long as he could.

  Archaeological evidence seems to suggest that Britain prospered during Carausius’s reign. He not only completed the fortification programme already initiated but built further forts and castles, such as Portus Aderni (Portchester) and Cardiff Castle, and probably started work on the massive fort at Anderida (Pevensey). He also established the first mint in London. Unfortunately, he also apparently withdrew troops from Hadrian’s Wall to defend the Saxon shore and the Welsh coast, allowing the Caledonii to take advantage for the first time in nearly a century.

  Because of his defences and his fleet, attempts to capture Carausius proved difficult, and Maximian suffered heavy losses. In 293 he delegated the problem to his new caesar, Constantius. After a long siege, Constantius regained Boulogne and was able to blockade Britain. Though still popular, Carausius became weakened and was murdered by his second-in-command Allectus, who proclaimed himself Emperor. Allectus had been Carausius’s treasurer, ensuring that the troops were paid, and thus was able to retain their support. He remained independent for a further three years until Constantius mounted a major invasion on two fronts. Allectus was killed in battle, either near Farnham in Surrey, or near Silchester, by Constantius’s second in command Asclepiodotus. Allectus’s troops fled to London where they met Constantius’s army and were defeated. Legend has it that many were executed and their bodies thrown into the Walbrook.

  Both Carausius and Asclepiodotus left their mark in British myth, though in reverse. By the time Geoffrey of Monmouth produced his History, Carausius had become the enemy of the British, an invader and usurper, who killed Bassianus (Caracalla’s original name) and ruled in his place. Geoffrey correctly has him killed by Allectus and then Allectus murdered by Asclepiodotus, but identifies the latter as a Briton and Duke of Cornwall. Geoffrey states that Asclepiodotus reigned for ten years before being in turn killed by King Coel, the Old King Cole of the nursery rhyme. Coel will feature again in our history, though in his rightful place, but this story serves to show how soon oral history and legend transmute facts into pseudo-history. With Carausius we are, in fact, a little over a hundred years away from the start of the Arthurian period, yet that is sufficient time for history to mutate into myth. Such mutation is something we have to bear in mind throughout this book.

  The truth is that Carausius’s rebellion had a more significant impact upon Britain. The caesar, Constantius, having rid Britain of Allectus, undertook a lightning tour to check defences, especially on the northern frontier. Contemporary accounts refer for the first time to the tribes as the Picts, though there’s little reason to believe they are any other than the Caledonii and other northern tribes. Constantius ordered some refurbishments and then returned to Rome to celebrate his triumph.

  He returned to Britain ten years later, in 305, this time as Emperor. He was later joined by his son Constantine. The intervening decade had seen Diocletian introduce a series of sweeping reforms to the administration of the Empire, though precisely when they were enforced in Britain is not clear. Diocletian divided the Empire into twelve dioceses, each with a vicarius in charge. Every diocese was divided into provinces, each with its own governor. Britain was one diocese and now had four provinces. The former northern province of Britannia Inferior was divided in two from the Mersey to the Humber. The northernmost province became Britannia Secunda, with its capital at York, whilst the southern half became Flavia Caesariensis, with a capital at Lincoln. The former southern province of Britannia Superior was also split in half by a line heading almost straight north from Southampton. The west, including Wales and the south-west, became Britannia Prima, with the capital at Cirencester. To the east was Maxima Caesariensis, with the capital at London. London also seems to have been the overall diocesan capital. This further division was to have consequences a century later with the re-emergence of British kingdoms. These reforms also separated the civic administration from the military. Whilst Britain was administered by a vicarius based in London, the northern forces were controlled by the dux Britanniarum, based in York. Diocletian was going to have no more rebellious usurpers able to call upon vast armies though, as we shall soon see, this did not work in Britain.

  Diocletian also issued a violent edict against Christianity. It was probably at this time that Britain saw its first martyr in Alban, who was executed at Verulami
um (St Albans). Christianity had a strong hold in Britain, and was a factor in how the provinces developed distinct from the rest of the Empire.

  Constantius undertook a series of campaigns in northern Britain against the Picts. Little is known about this, but it seems to have been successful as there was comparative peace for another fifty years. For Constantius, alas, there was little time to appreciate his achievement. He was seriously ill, possibly with leukaemia (his nickname was Constantius the Pale), and he died in York in July 306, aged 56.

  Under Diocletian’s reforms, Constantius should automatically have been succeeded as emperor by his nominated caesar, Flavius Valerius Severus. In fact, Constantius had not selected his successor; it had been done for him by Galerius, his co-emperor in the east. Not everyone wanted Severus as emperor, least of all the British, and true to tradition the British troops promptly nominated their own successor, Constantius’s son Constantine. Galerius begrudgingly made Constantine the successor to Severus, but it was a far from simple succession, and it would be eighteen years before Constantine became sole emperor.

  Because Constantine became such a great emperor and, most significantly, made Christianity the official religion of Rome, and because his cause had been promoted by the British, he was well remembered in Britain and entered popular folklore.

  Constantine’s mother Helena was a native of Bithynia (in present-day northern Turkey) and never, apparently, came to Britain. Later beatified, Helena became a devout Christian and undertook a pilgrimage to Palestine in 326, founding several churches. She is supposed to have found the True Cross in Jerusalem, though dates conflict; she died in about 330 whilst the legend of the discovery of the Cross dates from about 335, during the construction of Constantine’s basilica. At some stage the legend grew that Helen was British, the daughter of King Coel of Colchester, whom we have already met in myth as the murderer of Asclepiodotus. This legend took a firm hold in Britain, because it made Constantine a Briton and the grandson of Coel. It is probable that later chroniclers, especially Geoffrey of Monmouth, confused Helena with Elen, wife of a later British usurper-emperor, Magnus Maximus, who also had a son called Constantine. Elen was the daughter of the British chieftain Eudaf (of whom more later).

  But the legend refuses to die. As we have seen, myths have a habit of ousting history, and we have to be on our guard.

  4. The End of Empire

  By good organisation, strength of character and sheer charisma, Constantine kept the Roman empire together, but thereafter the empire was on the decline. His successors fought each other, crumbling the empire at its heart and weakening it at its frontiers, making it vulnerable to barbarian attack. This was as evident in Britain as elsewhere in the empire.

  One mystery related to Britain at this time is worth mentioning, as it may have later relevance. By the 340s the empire was split between Constantine’s two surviving sons: Constans, who ruled the west, including Britain, and Constantius II who ruled the east. In 343 Constans made an impulsive visit to Britain. His visit remains a mystery, yet the fact that he risked crossing the English Channel during the winter suggests that it was something serious. The contemporary chronicler Libanius, who recorded the visit (but seemed equally at a loss to explain it), noted that “affairs in Britain were stable”, thereby ruling out the likelihood of a rebellion.

  So what prompted it? Was it a religious matter? We shall see later that Britain was one of the rebel nations when it came to Christianity, supporting pagan worship and later encouraging dangerous interpretations of Christian teachings such as Pelagianism. Would this be enough to tempt Constans across the waves at such a dangerous time? Possibly, but I am not convinced.

  Further incursions by the Picts in the north is a possible explanation, but the winter was not a great period for warfare, and although British defences to the north were not as thorough as they had been, they were still sufficient to cope with any activity that had not come to the notice of the chroniclers.

  Was it, perhaps, an enclave of support for Constantius against Constans, or perhaps a lingering support for their dead brother Constantine II, who had ruled Gaul and Britain until his murder just three years earlier?

  This seems more likely. Diocletian had set up an extremely efficient intelligence agency, known as the agentes in rebus, who were good at sniffing out areas of unrest. Britain was always a hotbed of rebels, and the fact that Libanius reports that Britain’s affairs were “stable” might only mean that word had not got out and any rebellion had been nipped in the bud by Constans’s surprise visit.

  Support for this interpretation comes from events just a few years later. In 350 Constans was murdered following an uprising in support of his army commander Magnentius. Although Magnentius was born in Gaul, his father was believed to be British and was probably a high-ranking official. Did Constans learn of a plot, perhaps by Magnentius’s father in 343, which he was able to stifle? Magnentius had a brief but mostly successful period as rival emperor until a series of defeats led him to commit suicide in 353. Constantius lived to fight another day, and sent the heavies into Britain to root out any remaining supporters of Magnentius. His envoy was an over-zealous martinet from Spain called Paul who tortured, killed and imprisoned many British officials, regardless of their guilt or innocence. So vicious were Paul’s measures that the vicarius of Britain, Flavius Martinus, tried to assassinate him but, when he failed, killed himself.

  Soon after Paul’s inquisitorial rampage another usurper rose in Britain, the mysterious Carausius II. Continental writers seem to know nothing about him, not even the ever-vigilant Ammianus Marcellinus, whose History is one of the best records of this period. Unfortunately, most of the early part of his work has been lost, so we know of the existence of Carausius II only from surviving coinage. Some historians have even dismissed the very existence of Carausius. However, he has been adopted into Welsh legend as the son-in-law of the patriarchal Eudaf Hen (“the Old”), from whom most of the British kings were descended.

  Even more mysteriously, amongst the British coinage is a record of someone called Genceris, who may have ruled elsewhere in Britain at the time of Carausius. Analysis of these coins can only tell us so much, but it suggests that rival rulers did emerge in Britain in the period 354–358. They were seeking not to proclaim themselves rival emperors but, like Carausius I, to rule Britain independently. Britain in the fourth century was at her wealthiest. Profits from grain exports and other native industries, plus unprecedented periods of comparative peace, had allowed the Romano-British to become comfortable, and to think thoughts of independence. Constantine’s successors were fighting so much amongst themselves, and drawing troops away from the borders, that Britain was becoming increasingly vulnerable. Saxons were continuing to harry the western coasts, the Irish were raiding the east, and the Picts were once again invading from the north. The Romano-British aristocracy did not feel that the Empire was providing sufficient protection

  From 360, Roman Britain was overrun by a massive Pictish invasion, with further uprisings in 364 and 367. Ammianus Marcellinus, who lived through these times, recorded the 367 revolt with dramatic effect in his Res Gestae in 378,

  At this time, with trumpets sounding for war as if throughout the Roman world, the most savage tribes rose up and poured across the nearest frontiers. At one and the same time the Alamanni were plundering Gaul and Raetia, the Sarmatae and Quadri Pannonia; the Picts, Saxons, Scots and Attacotti harassed the Britons with continual calamities.

  The Attacotti (or Attecotti) were another tribe in the far north of Scotland. Later in his narrative, Ammianus provides amplification of the above:

  . . . at the time in question the Picts were divided into two tribes, the Dicalydones and the Verturiones. These, together with the warlike Attacotti and the Scots, were ranging over a wide area causing much devastation, while the Franks and their neighbours the Saxons ravaged the coast of Gaul with vicious acts of pillage, arson and the murder of all prisoners . . .

 
; We also learn that the areani who, rather like present-day police informants, were relating intelligence of barbarian activities back to the military, had turned traitor and allied themselves with the Picts and Scots in revealing troop movements. As a consequence, the barbarians captured the dux Britanniarum Nectaridus, and killed the Count of the Saxon Shore, Fullofaudes.

  The new emperor, Valentinian, sent a general to deal with the problem, but he was soon recalled because of the enormity of the situation. Eventually, a much bigger force was despatched, under the command of the brilliant general and tactician Theodosius. Upon his arrival, he discovered bands of marauding barbarians as far south as Kent and London. The Roman army was also in disarray, many having deserted or forsaken their posts. The remaining force was demoralised and lacked co-ordination. The barbarians had by now no central command, and it was easy for Theodosius and his troops to pick them off. He arrived at London in triumph and soon restored morale, pardoning deserters and encouraging the return of others. He spent the next two years not only recovering the diocese, but undertaking a major programme of repair and refortification. Old forts were strengthened, towns were rebuilt and fortified, and a new series of watchtowers and signal stations was built along the north-east coast to serve as advance guard against sea-borne attacks. Theodosius also nipped one possible revolution in the bud when he arrested one Valentinus, a criminal exiled to Britain from Pannonia, who was apparently planning some sort of takeover in Britain. Most interestingly, Ammianus refers to Theodosius recovering an existing province, which had fallen into the hands of the enemy, and restoring it to its former state, renaming it Valentia in honour of the Emperor. Unfortunately he does not say where Valentia was, presumably having described it in one of his earlier, lost, books. The fact that Theodosius restored a former province means either that one of the four existing provinces had been lost to Roman control and was now recovered, or that a fifth province had previously been created. Evidence that it was a fifth province comes from the glorious document of the Roman civil service, the Notitia Dignitatum, a compendium of the various offices of state throughout the Empire, which lists Valentia separately. Although this document came into being during the reign of Constantine the Great, it was continually amended and updated and the version in which we know it today dates to some time around the end of the fourth century. Therefore we don’t know exactly when Valentia was created or where it was.