Arthur Britannicus (31 page)

On the right wing, the Britons shuffled sideways to their left, creating a gap between themselves and the marker stones at the edge of the marshes. Everything happened at once. The British chariots swept forward through the gap between the marker stones and their own infantry, heading at full stretch for the cowed, waiting Romans.

Awed spearmen later claimed that a mysterious, spectral shape galloped with them in a chariot drawn by white horses with blazing fire eyes. Some said they had seen it clearly, and it was the long-haired ghost of Queen Boadicea come again to cut the Romans into bloody ruin. The clatter of their wheels on the shingle was swamped by the roar of the troops of the centre, who under their warlord emperor, trotted forward in a classic shield wall, supporting the sacred Eagle that had been returned by the gods. A scant ten yards before the emperor’s force clashed head on with the bristling Roman line, Cragus and his troops hit a hammer blow into Maximian’s rear guard that confused and then shattered the ranks as easily as a fist closes and crushes an egg.

“We ground them into bloody offal,” Carausius recalled later. He had only dim memories of his own crazed bloodlust, of his willing surrender to the mindless joy and fighting madness of violence. He’d been there at the front of the carnage with his beloved soldiers, shield-less under his eagle-crested war helm, swinging his long sword Exalter two-handed. He remembered it crashing through the cheek pieces of a Roman’s helmet, spraying blood and teeth and tearing away the man’s entire lower jaw so he died with a ghastly mockery of a half-grin.

There was, too, the spearman he’d gutted with an upswing that cut from the crotch, spilled the entrails and split the rib cage so it shone whitely like a woman’s splayed fingers. He’d been singing, keening a battle noise to himself as he laboured like a blacksmith, beating, chopping, and swinging Exalter into blood-spurting flesh and bone, hammer blow after hammer blow tirelessly without stopping, for an hour.

It was a magical thing, to know the strength of your arms, he thought, to be an invincible lord of war surrendered to the overwhelming red bloodlust that was pounding in your ears. Time was trickling by so slowly you could see an enemy’s movements almost before he made them. When their blows came they seemed to your lightning mind so laboured and deliberate you could step inside them, or deflect them while you were looking to see what was happening at your sides and could choose at leisure, step by steady step, how you’d move to parry and counter. They were good memories, he mused, as he grunted at the aches in his body, but it had been too close a contest. Only small things had won the day, but the gods had willed it.

The emperor, still stained with smoke and smeared with blood spatters, was sitting in the commander’s quarters at Lympne, where a stack of reports and orders were waiting for his attention. He sighed as he recalled himself to the demands of the day. The prisoners, among them the general and emperor in waiting, Constantius Chlorus needed to be properly secured and fed. The dead had to be buried, the salvage teams must be sent out to collect war gear. Winning a battle led to more work, but it was the better option than losing, he felt. Some news was not so positive. Maximian and a medium-sized force had escaped by sea while his personal bodyguard died on the beach almost to the last man, fighting desperately to buy him time. The defeated emperor would likely come again, the Briton was sure. And a messenger brought news that made the emperor frown. Two Roman vessels blown west had survived the maelstrom of the narrows and had landed near Fishbourne, and in vengeance had sacked and burned Carausius’ palace there.

A defence of the palace had been mounted by the Greek woman, the mosaic artist Claria, but it was against hopeless odds. Desperate to save the masterwork she had so painstakingly created, she had mustered a dozen household servants, including the muralist Celvinius, who had fought like a wild thing, said several slaves who’d escaped the raid. “Claria was in the courtyard at first, and we saw her shoot down three invaders with a hunting bow,” they reported. The mural painter turned out to be a fighter, too.

“He had such skill with a spear that it took five Romans to finish him off,” the emperor heard. “We don’t know what happened to Claria, but the Romans looted the palace and burned it down. We watched from the woodlands and it was still aflame the next morning.”

A pity, thought Carausius. That mosaic of the god Cupid on a dolphin was a masterpiece. Now it would never be seen again, for the magnificent palace and its contents were all gone. He had no time for regrets about the lost opulence, though it would have been a part of his
legacy. Still, he thought, he could always have other memorials erected, and they’d last for hundreds of years.

For now, he had more pressing matters to concern him. He would announce that, in token of his role as British emperor, he would in future be known, not as Carausius, but in the way the sorcerer Myrddin had once named him: ‘Arthur of Britain.’ Something had resonated in his soul at the title, and with the triumph, it seemed oddly right.  “Now,” he thought, “I am no longer a Roman vassal. I am an emperor, and my son will be an emperor.”

As a practical matter, he thought he should underscore the victory. He would continue the principle of harshness he’d long ago absorbed from the old crucifixioner. He’d take the defeated Caesar, Constantius Chlorus in chains to Londinium and have him publicly executed. That would send shock waves through Milan, Nicomedia, Antioch and the other seats of imperial power, but he had a fleet to keep the Romans and those threatening Saxons out of Britain for ever and a newly-united country to back it.

The legions could use a victory parade behind their proud Eagles. Allectus should mint some special donatives and it might be a good idea to erect a statue in Londinium, to commemorate the rebel queen Boadicea. He’d heard stories from his soldiers of fighting alongside a ghost chariot driven by a long-haired woman that had led the right wing’s shattering strike on the Romans. Maybe there had been much magic working for the Britons that day.

Carausius fingered the large silver and amber brooch of his rank as a British jarl and smoothed the drape of his purple-banded imperial robe; Emperor of Britain. It was good to have the gods with you. In a corner of the room, a white rat preened its whiskers, curled comfortably and slept.

For now.

Post script: The Legend of Arthur

Britain’s forgotten emperor Carausius and his triumphs may well be the true foundation of the legend of King Arthur, the mythic warrior who became a symbol of courage, chivalry and Christianity.

Late in the third century of the Common Era, the Belgic-born Mauseus Carausius was commander of Rome’s English Channel fleet and was quietly building both his treasury and his military forces. Ordered to report for court martial by superiors nervous of his power, the burly, bear-like soldier instead declared himself emperor of Britain and northern Gaul, suborned several legions and the flotilla that controlled the Narrow Sea between the two countries and began a decade of defiance against the might of Rome.

In that time, the rebel emperor quieted the quarrelsome British tribes, unified the country and, as its first ruler (286 – 293 CE) used his navy to create and sustain the nation’s independence. However, Carausius’ significance in history was forgotten for centuries despite his achievements in driving off the Romans and quieting the Picts. He may also have defeated Germanic invaders, as his Saxon Shore fortifications prove that he was more than prepared to meet them. Today, his known and acclaimed triumphs are closely echoed in the stories of King Arthur.

The life purpose and the legend of Arthur, the battle leader of the British, came together when he led his nation successfully to repel invaders. That victorious ‘lord of battles’ was described by the monk Gildas, (circa 500 - 570 CE) who created the island’s earliest written history when he penned an admonition of usurper kings, corrupt judges and foolish priests. In his sermon, Gildas described the siege of Mount Badon as the great conflict in which Anglo-Saxon invaders were routed decisively to bring peace after a long period of strife.

The north British monk’s ‘De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae’ (‘On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain’) speaks of an unnamed ‘outstanding ruler’ (‘superbus tyrannus’) who brought the British a series of victories that culminated at Badon. That event was so celebrated that Gildas did not bother to identify the location of Badon or even to name the victor, noting only that ‘Arth’ – Celtic for ‘The Bear’ – was such a great overlord that the king of Powys, Cuneglasus The Red, humbly acted as his master’s charioteer. After that triumph, the very name ‘Arthur’ became a powerful symbol and was adopted by later rulers who wished to assume some of the glory of the legendary British champion.

Gildas’ writings are valued as the earliest known recorded history of Britain, although his calendar was muddled. He wrongly dates the construction of the walls of Hadrian and Antoninus to the late fourth century, when they actually were created two centuries earlier. By his account, the ramparts were built in the years before invaders from the west and north devastated the island. In turn, the incomers were defeated in a series of battles, of which the siege at Mount Badon was among the last, and the victor of that siege united Britain.

Gildas, who was writing a century or two after the events, might have confused the dates, but he likely got the sequence right: the walls were built, the invaders came, a leader arose to drive them away. It means that Arthur may have lived considerably earlier than generally believed, at a date contemporaneous with the late third century reign of Carausius.

The vast poverty of evidence from the time means that the other histories we have are not contemporary, some being written as long as 800 years after the events they report, but they agree to the general theme: that an ‘Arthur’ or ‘Caros’ led his country against invaders in the earliest days of the nation, bringing peace. Some accounts are not written, but come from folklore, like the strong Celtic tradition which holds that the Pict Oscar, son of Ossian, was killed when he attacked the emperor Caros while he was rebuilding Hadrian’s Wall.

The Welsh storyteller Geoffrey of Monmouth, writing his ‘Historia Regum Britanniae’ (‘The History of the Kings of Britain’) circa 1136 CE, also relayed a good deal of long-established folklore and described Arthur as a Briton, although some suggest the king was actually a Celt.

Carausius, the historical ruler at the heart of the legend, may well have been Celtic. Roman panegyrists who denigrated the man who seized a throne from their patrons sneeringly described him as a ‘Menapian of the lowest birth,’ but their views were coloured. Menapia was the River Meuse region of modern Belgium, an area settled by Celts. Some sources suggest that Carausius was recorded as the son of a ranking official from the region.

What we do know is that his rise through the Roman military to become admiral of the Channel fleet attests to his abilities, and the evidence of the literary slogans on his coinage suggests he was well-educated.

His image on those coins shows a bearded, bear-like, bull-necked soldier, and all the evidence points to his being a bold and outstanding leader of men with great personal courage and charisma. Another clue to his standing is that at his life’s end he was buried in the heart of Britain as a king, and his headstone shows he was a Christian. The Carausius grave marker
in Wales with its looped Chi-Ro cross is especially rare, and it and a tall milestone found in 1894 not far from Hadrian’s Wall carry the only two known inscriptions to him in the nation he once ruled, because the Romans expurgated his memorials after they recaptured Britain.

The milestone, which was found on Gallows Hill, Carlisle, was saved only by chance as it was re-used, reversed in the ground. The buried portion preserved for us the glory of the redacted emperor’s full name and title: ‘Emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius Mausaeus Carausius, Dutiful, Fortunate, the Unconquered Augustus.’ It was recorded thus:

IMP C M AVR MAVS CARAVSIO PF INVICTO AVG

Correlations between places important in the lives of Arthur and Carausius provide other links between the mythic and the historical men. The Arthur of legend has numerous claimed resting places, but some of the most persuasive tales link him to north Wales, where Carausius was buried.

This parallels the Welsh tradition that Arthur, who ‘carried the cross of Christ on his shield’, was mortally wounded at the legendary battle of Camlann. That conflict has been placed in Gwynedd, whose ruling dynasty was pre-eminent among British kings.  In the 19th century an antiquarian described the discovery of a Roman grave in that exact region near the sacred mountain of Snowdon, Yr Wyddfa, which legend says is the tumulus under which Arthur buried a giant he slew. The headstone, a very rare artefact, is inscribed ‘’Carausius lies here, in this cairn of stones’ (‘Carausius hic iacit in hoc congeries lapidum’). The site is of considerable significance. It is situated high on a Roman road southwest of Cwm Penmachno at the summit of a pass, and is the perfect place for a king’s long sleep, a resting place chosen to overlook a sweeping expanse of his territory.

The Carausius headstone is also distinguished as the earliest found in Wales known to carry the Chi-Ro cross of a Christian, a marking that is one of only a dozen found anywhere in Britain. The man it memorialized was important enough that his gravestone and probably his bones were moved to the nearby church of St Tudclud in Penmachno. This was an important early Christian site and is the reputed burial place of the heir to the Welsh throne, Iorweth ab Owain Gwynedd, who was father of Wales’ most famous monarch, Llywelyn the Great. The heir was also known as Iorweth Broken Nose and it is said he was refused the throne because of his misshapen face. Whether the long-ago royal was ugly or not, locals believe that two powerful rulers are interred in their ancient graveyard: the Roman admiral and emperor who united Britain and the Celtic prince whose son united Wales. The Carausian gravestone can
be viewed in the church at Penmachno, which reopened in 2010 after a 15-year hiatus; the milestone bearing the lost emperor’s titles is in the Tullie House Museum, Carlisle.

There are other, tantalizing geographic links. One of them, mentioned in a 1622 history, is in Oxfordshire. It recalled memories of the long-dead emperor and spoke of the ‘entrenched sconce of Caraus’ camp,’ a fortification near the church of St Laurence at Caversfield, which may once have been called Carausiusfeld. This church was built around 800 CE, likely on an earlier edifice, and is close to where the casualties of an ancient battle were buried. In 1620, a hoard of Carausian coins was found nearby, at Steeple Clayton. Folklore holds that the usurper emperor was treacherously defeated in battle at nearby Bicester, a theme which reflects the long-held belief that Carausius was betrayed by his closest aide. This, history says, was a man known as ‘Allectus,’ a term which means simply ‘chosen’ or ‘elected,’ and which may not even be a proper name. (Another version of Carausius’ end is that he was assassinated by Allectus after the fall of Bononia.)

Equally, the site of Arthur’s greatest battle, the siege at Mount Badon, (Mons Badonicus) is not known. Some scholars, associating the Germanic word ‘bath/baden’ with ‘Badon’ theorize that Buxton, Derbyshire, site of a spring whose sacred waters were adopted by the Romans as a spa, was the site of the Badon conflict and this fits neatly with the northern focus of this narrative. Others, arguing for Badbury or Bardon, place the siege in places as diverse as Bath, Coalville, Linlithgow, the Cotswolds, Dorset and Swindon.  However, over the centuries the battles and the victorious king’s story have been recorded only in oral tradition, not in written chronicles, so the fog of myth obscures our view of the landscape of history.

The real story of Arthur, Guinevere and Merlin, reflected here in the characters of Carausius, Guinevia and Myrddin, will possibly never
be known. As it is sometimes advisable to ignore the opinions of academics whose conjectures may be no more valid than those of other people, I respectfully suggest that the Carausius of history is the king whose deeds prompted the legend of Arthur.

What is certain is that in 2010, the discovery of a hoard of Carausian coins buried in a Somerset meadow brought attention again to Britain’s Forgotten Emperor and inspired this book. I hope it revives interest in the sailor who created a nation and a navy that has kept it unconquered for nearly a thousand years.