Caratacus: Encyclopedia - Caratacus

Caratacus

Caratacus (also spelled Caractacus) was a historical British chieftain of the Catuvellauni tribe, who led the British resistance to the Roman conquest. He may correspond with the legendary Welsh character Caradog (also written Caradoc, Caradawg) and the legendary British king Arvirargus.

Caratacus - History

Caratacus is named by Dio Cassius as a son of the Catuvellaunian king Cunobelinus (the inspiration for William Shakespeare's Cymbeline).^[1] Based on coin distribution Caratacus appears to have been the protegé of his uncle Epaticcus, who expanded Catuvellaunian power westwards into the territory of the Atrebates. After Epaticcus died ca. 35 AD, the Atrebates, under Verica, regained some of their territory, but it appears Caratacus completed the conquest, as Dio tells us Verica was ousted, fled to Rome and appealed to the emperor Claudius for help. This was the excuse Claudius used to launch his invasion of Britain in 43.

Cunobelinus had died some time before the invasion. Caratacus and his brother Togodumnus led the initial defence of the country against Aulus Plautius's legions, primarily using guerrilla tactics, but were defeated in two crucial battles on the rivers Medway (see Battle of Medway) and Thames. Togodumnus was killed and the Catuvellauni's territories conquered, but Caratacus survived and carried on the resistance further west.

We next hear of Caratacus in Tacitus's Annals, leading the Silures and Ordovices in what is now Wales against Plautius's successor as governor, Publius Ostorius Scapula.^[2] Finally, in 51, Scapula managed to defeat Caratacus in a set-piece battle somewhere in Ordivician territory (see the Battle of Caer Caradock), capturing Caratacus's wife and daughter and receiving the surrender of his brothers. Caratacus himself escaped, and fled north to the lands of the Brigantes. The Brigantian queen, Cartimandua, however, was loyal to Rome, and she handed him over in chains (This was once of the factors that led to two Brigantian revolts against Cartimandua and her Roman allies, once later in the 50s and once in 69, led by Venutius, who had once been Cartimandua's husband).

Legend places Caratacus' last stand at British Camp in the Malvern Hills, but the description of Tacitus makes this unlikely:

Although the Severn is visible from British Camp, it is nowhere near it, so this battle must have taken place elsewhere.

He made such an impression that he was pardoned and allowed to live in peace in Rome. After his liberation, according to Dio Cassius, Caratacus was so impressed by the city of Rome that he said "And can you, then, who have got such possessions and so many of them, covet our poor tents?"^[5]

Caratacus - Caratacus's name

Older translations of Tacitus tend to favour the spelling "Caractacus", but modern scholars agree, based on historical linguistics and source criticism, that the correct form is "Caratacus", pronounced "ka-ra-TAH-kus", which gives the attested names Caradog in Welsh and Carthach in Irish.^[6]

Caratacus - British legend

Caratacus's name survived in British legend as Caradawg, Cradawg or Caradog, although his true historical context appears to have been forgotten. He appears in the Mabinogion, where he is named as a son of Bran the Blessed. He is left in charge of Britain while his father makes war in Ireland, but is overthrown by Caswallawn (the historical Cassivellaunus, who lived a century earlier than Caratacus).^[7] The Welsh Triads agree that he was the son of Bran the Blessed and name two sons, Cawrdaf and Eudaf.^[8] A later collection of Triads compiled by the 18th century Welsh antiquarian Iolo Morganwg, the authenticity of which is doubtful, adds that Caradawg's father Bran was held hostage by the Romans for seven years, and brought Christianity to Britain on his return. Iolo also makes the legendary king Coel a son of Caradawg's son Cyllen.^[9]

A genealogy of Lot, king of Lothian, Orkney, and Norway in Arthurian legend, appears in the medieval manuscript known as Harleian MS 3859. Three generations of his line read "Caratauc map Cinbelin map Teuhant". This is the equivalent of "Caratacus, son of Cunobelinus, son of Tasciovanus", putting the three historical figures in the correct order, although the wrong historical context, the degree of linguistic change suggesting a long period of oral transmission. This is particularly interesting as Tasciovanus's name does not appear in any surviving classical text or legendary tale, and has only been rediscovered in the 20th century through coin legends. The remainder of the genealogy contains the names of a sequence of Roman emperors, and two Welsh mythological figures, Guidgen (Gwydion) and Lou (Llew).^[10]

Caratacus does not appear in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, although he may correspond to Arvirargus, a son of Cymbeline (Gweirydd, son of Cynfelyn, in Welsh versions).^[11]

Caratacus - Caratacus and Christianity

Caratacus is described as a "barbarian Christian" in Dio Cassius's Roman History.^[12] This is a fragment of a lost passage of Dio, preserved in two variant versions in the 6th century Excerpta Vaticana and by the 12th century chronicler Joannes Zonaras, both Christian documents which may not accurately reflect Dio's original.^[13] It should be noted that Herbert Baldwin Foster's 1904 translation reads "Carnetacus, a barbarian chieftain".^[14]

A theory popularised in The Drama of the Lost Disciples, a 1961 book by the British Israelite pseudohistorian George Jowett, claims that he was a Christian before he came to Rome, and members of his family who were brought to Rome with him became important figures in the early Christian movement. The theory centres on Claudia Rufina, a historical British woman known to the poet Martial (Epigrams XI:53).^[15] Jowett identifies her as a daughter of Caratacus, and with the the Claudia mentioned in 2 Timothy in the New Testament. Martial describes Claudia's marriage to a man named Pudens (Epigrams IV:13), in all likelihood his friend Aulus Pudens, to whom he addresses numerous poems; Jowett's theory identifies him with St. Pudens, an early Christian saint whom he claims was the half-brother of St. Paul. The historical Pope Linus is claimed to be Caratacus's son on the basis of being described as the "brother of Claudia" in an early church document. The basilica of Santa Pudenziana in Rome was supposedly once called the Palatium Britannicum and was the home of Caratacus and his family. However, Jowett's book is a pious fraud based on the deliberate distortion of sources and cannot be relied upon (see The Drama of the Lost Disciples for examples of Jowett's distortion of sources).

Caratacus - Notes

1. ^  Dio Cassius, trans Earnest Cary, Roman History 60:19-22
2. ^  * Tacitus, Annals 12:33-38
3. ^  Tacitus, The Annals, translated by A. J. Woodman, 2004; see also Church & Brodribb's translation
4. ^  Tacitus, The Annals, translated by A. J. Woodman, 2004; see also Church & Brodribb's translation
5. ^  Cassius Dio, Roman History, Epitome of Book LXI, 33:3c, translated by Earnest Carey, Loeb Classical Library, 1914-1927
6. ^  Kenneth H. Jackson, "Queen Boudicca?", Britannia 10 p. 255, 1979
7. ^  Gwyn Jones & Thomas Jones (trans), The Mabinogion, Everyman, 1993
8. ^  Rachel Bromwich, Trioedd Ynys Prydein, University of Wales Press, 1963
9. ^  Iolo Morganwg, The Triads of Britain, trans. W. Probert, 1977
10. ^  Ancestry of Lot Luwddoc at Early British Kingdoms
11. ^  Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, translated by Lewis Thorpe, 1973; Peter Roberts (trans), The Chronicle of the Kings of Britain, 1811
12. ^  Cassius Dio, Roman History, Epitome of Book LXI, 33:3c, translated by Earnest Cary, Loeb Classical Library, 1914-1927
13. ^  U P Boissevain (ed), Cassii Dionis Cocceiani Vol 3 p. 12, 1955; Earnest Cary, Introduction to the Loeb edition
14. ^  Dio's Rome Vol. 4, translated by Herbert Baldwin Foster, 1905
15. ^  Martial, Epigrams, ed. & trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Harvard University Press, 1993

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