Caratacus

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Caractacus
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Caratacus
King of the Britons
King of the Catuvellauni
Cunobelinus
MotherUnknown

Caratacus (

chieftain of the Catuvellauni tribe, who resisted the Roman conquest of Britain
.

Before the Roman invasion, Caratacus is associated with the expansion of his tribe's territory. His apparent success led to Roman invasion, nominally in support of his defeated enemies. He resisted the Romans for almost a decade, using guerrilla warfare, but when he offered a set-piece battle he was defeated by Roman forces. After defeat he fled to the territory of Queen Cartimandua, who captured him and handed him over to the Romans. He was sentenced to death, but made a speech before his execution that persuaded the Emperor Claudius to spare him.

Caratacus' speech to Claudius has been a common subject in art.

Name

Caratacus' name appears as both Caratacus and Caractacus in manuscripts of Tacitus, and as Καράτακος and Καρτάκης in manuscripts of Dio. Older reference works tend to favour the spelling "Caractacus", but modern scholars agree, based on historical linguistics and source criticism, that the original Common Brittonic form was *Karatākos, pronounced [karaˈtaːkos], cognate with Welsh Caradog, Breton Karadeg, and Irish Carthach, meaning "loving, beloved, dear; friend".[1]

History

Claudian invasion

Caratacus is named by

Colonia Victricensis.[4][9][10]

Resistance to Rome

Caradog watercolour painting by Thomas Prydderch.

We next hear of Caratacus in

Severn was pacified and garrisoned throughout the 50s.[12]

Legends place Caratacus' last stand at either Caer Caradoc[13] near Church Stretton or British Camp[14] in the Malvern Hills, but the description of Tacitus makes either unlikely:

[Caratacus] resorted to the ultimate hazard, adopting a place for battle so that entry, exit, everything would be unfavourable to us and for the better to his own men, with steep mountains all around, and, wherever a gentle access was possible, he strewed rocks in front in the manner of a rampart. And in front too there flowed a stream with an unsure ford, and companies of armed men had taken up position along the defences.[15]

Although the

Severn is visible from British Camp, it is nowhere near it, so this battle must have taken place elsewhere. A number of locations have been suggested, including a site near Brampton Bryan. Bari Jones, in Archaeology Today in 1998, identified Blodwel Rocks at Llanymynech in Powys as representing a close fit with Tacitus's account.[full citation needed
]

Captive in Rome

After his capture, Caratacus was sent to Rome as a war prize, presumably to be killed after a triumphal parade. Although a captive, he was allowed to address the Roman Senate. Tacitus records a version of his speech in which he says that his stubborn resistance made Rome's glory in defeating him all the greater:

Andrew Birrell (after Henry Fuseli), Caractacus at the Tribunal of Claudius at Rome (1792)

If the degree of my nobility and fortune had been matched by moderation in success, I would have come to this City as a friend rather than a captive, nor would you have disdained to receive with a treaty of peace one sprung from brilliant ancestors and commanding a great many nations. But my present lot, disfiguring as it is for me, is magnificent for you. I had horses, men, arms, and wealth: what wonder if I was unwilling to lose them? If you wish to command everyone, does it really follow that everyone should accept your slavery? If I were now being handed over as one who had surrendered immediately, neither my fortune nor your glory would have achieved brilliance. It is also true that in my case any reprisal will be followed by oblivion. On the other hand, if you preserve me safe and sound, I shall be an eternal example of your clemency.[16]

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, still covet our poor huts?"[17]

Legend

Medieval Welsh traditions

Caratacus' memory may have been preserved in medieval Welsh tradition. A

genealogy in the Welsh Harley MS 3859 (c. 1100) includes the generations "Caratauc map Cinbelin map Teuhant", corresponding, via established processes of language change, to "Caratacus, son of Cunobelinus, son of Tasciovanus", preserving the names of the three historical figures in correct relationship.[18]

Caratacus does not appear in

Kymbelinus, who continues to resist the Roman invasion after the death of his older brother Guiderius.[19] In Welsh versions his name is Gweirydd, son of Cynfelyn, and his brother is called Gwydyr;[20] the name Arviragus is taken from a poem by Juvenal.[21]

Caswallawn (the historical Cassivellaunus, who lived a century earlier than Caratacus).[22] The Welsh Triads agree that he was Bran's son, and name two sons, Cawrdaf and Eudaf.[23]

Two hills in Shropshire bear the name Caer Caradoc (Welsh – Caer Caradog), meaning fort of Caradoc, and have popular associations with him. One is an Iron Age hill fort and Scheduled Monument near the town of Clun. It overlooks the village of Chapel Lawn. The other Caer Caradoc is a prominent hill and Iron Age hill fort near Church Stretton, 16 miles (26 km) to the north-east.

Modern traditions

Caradog only began to be identified with Caratacus after the rediscovery of the works of Tacitus, and new material appeared based on this identification. An 18th-century tradition, popularised by the Welsh antiquarian and forger

Iestyn ab Gwrgant and used this as evidence of the early entry of Christianity to Britain: "Cyllin ab Caradog, a wise and just king. In his days many of the Cymry embraced the faith in Christ through the teaching of the saints of Cor-Eurgain, and many godly men from the countries of Greece and Rome were in Cambria. He first of the Cymry gave infants names; for before, names were not given except to adults, and then from something characteristic in their bodies, minds, or manners."[25]

Another tradition, which has remained popular among

St. Paul, and identifies a number of early Christians as his relatives.[26]

One is Pomponia Graecina, wife of Aulus Plautius, the conqueror of Britain, who as Tacitus relates, was accused of following a "foreign superstition", which the tradition considers to be Christianity.[27] Tacitus describes her as the "wife of the Plautius who returned from Britain with an ovation", which led John Lingard (1771–1851) to conclude, in his History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, that she was British;[28] however, this conclusion is a misinterpretation of what Tacitus wrote. An ovation was a military parade in honour of a victorious general, so the person who "returned from Britain with an ovation" is clearly Plautius, not Pomponia. This has not prevented the error being repeated and disseminated widely.

Another is

2 Timothy in the New Testament.[32] Some go further, claiming that Claudia was Caratacus' daughter, and that the historical Pope Linus, who is described as the "brother of Claudia" in an early church document, was Caratacus' son. Pudens is identified with St. Pudens, and it is claimed that the basilica of Santa Pudenziana
in Rome, and with which St. Pudens is associated, was once called the Palatium Britannicum and was the home of Caratacus and his family.

This theory was popularised in a 1961 book called The Drama of the Lost Disciples by George Jowett, but Jowett did not originate it. He cites renaissance historians such as Archbishop

In the arts

William Blake's vision of Caratacus from his series of illustrations called the Visionary Heads
  • Caratach is anachronistically depicted as Boudica's general in John Fletcher's play Bonduca (1613). The historical Caratach was exiled from Britain nearly a decade prior to Boudica's war.
  • Caratacus is the subject of William Mason's 1759 poem of the same name and the 1776 play based on it.
  • Caratacus is the title character of the Italian opera Carattaco by Johann Christian Bach, first performed in London in 1767
  • A detailed knowledge of Caractacus' uniform is claimed by Major-General Stanley in "
    The Major-General's Song" from Gilbert and Sullivan's 1879 comic opera "The Pirates of Penzance
    ".
  • "Caractacus" is the title of a cantata by Edward Elgar in 1897–98 devoted to the defeat and capture of the king by the Romans. It was first performed at the Leeds choral festival in 1898.
  • Caractacus is the subject of a Victorian poem called Caractacus the Briton by William Stewart Ross, published 1881 in a collection titled Lays of Romance and Chivalry, and distinguished by the refrain, "Caractacus the Briton, the bravest of the brave!"
  • The defeat of Caradoc (Caratacus) by the Romans is the subject of Henry Treece's 1952 adult novel, The Dark Island, the second book in his Celtic Tetralogy. As well, a poem titled Caratacus appears in Treece's Exiles, a collection of poetry published in the same year.
  • Caractacus briefly appears as a minor character in the
    Claudius the God. In the television adaptation of Graves's novels, he is portrayed in a brief appearance by Peter Bowles
    .
  • Caratacus' capture and life as a captive in Rome is told from the point of view of his fictional daughter, Eigon, in Barbara Erskine's time-slip novel, The Warrior's Princess, pub. 2008.
  • Caratacus is a major character in Douglas Jackson's 2008 novel Claudius, the sequel to Caligula (2008).
  • Caradoc is a major character in author Pauline Gedge's 1978 novel, The Eagle and The Raven.
  • Caratacus appears in several volumes of
    Eagle series
    , including Under the Eagle, The Eagle's Conquest, When the Eagle Hunts, The Eagle and the Wolves, The Eagle's Prey, Blood Crows and Brothers In Blood.
  • Caradoc is a main character in Manda Scott's series "Boudica" ("Dreaming the Eagle", "Dreaming the Bull", "Dreaming the Hound", "Dreaming the Serpent-Spear").
  • Caratach appears as a stage character in Harry Turtledove's alternate history novel Ruled Britannia. In this novel, a fictional version of William Shakespeare writes a play called Boudicca, which is almost identical to John Fletcher's Bonduca. In the book's afterword Turtledove acknowledges Fletcher's influence, but in the novel itself he mistakenly suggests that Caratach was depicted as Boudicca's man in Tacitus's Annals.
  • "The Court of King Caractacus" is a nonsense song by Rolf Harris. The single reached No 9 in the Australian Singles Chart in 1964.[34][35]
  • Caratacus is referenced in the Paradox Interactive video game Crusader Kings II in the form of bloodline inherited by some characters in the game, the "Bloodline of Caradog".
  • Caradog before Caesar in Rome is a painting by Ellis Owen Ellis (Ellis Bryn-Coch), a Welsh portrait painter who won a number of prizes in London art galleries after moving there in 1834.[36]

See also

References

  1. ^ Kenneth H. Jackson, "Queen Boudicca?", Britannia 10 p. 255, 1979
  2. Dio Cassius, trans Earnest Cary, Roman History 60:19–22
  3. ^ John Creighton, Coins and power in Late Iron Age Britain, Cambridge University Press, 2000; Philip de Jersey (1996), Celtic Coinage in Britain, Shire Archaeology
  4. ^ )
  5. )
  6. ^ Jorit Wintjes (2020) 'On the side of a righteous vengeance' – Counterinsurgency operations in Roman Britain, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 31:5, 1108-1129, DOI: 10.1080/09592318.2020.1764715
  7. )
  8. ^ J. G. F. Hind, "A. Palutius' Campaign in Britain: An Alternative Reading of the Narrative in Cassius Dio (60.19.5–21.2)", Britannia Vol. 38 (2007), pp. 93–106)
  9. )
  10. )
  11. ^ Tacitus, Annals 12:33–38
  12. ^ A History of Britain, Richard Dargie (2007), p. 21
  13. ^ "Caer Caradoc Hill Fort". Church Stretton. Retrieved 2022-04-22.
  14. ^ BBC. "Malvern Hills - the story of British Camp". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2022-04-22.
  15. ^ Tacitus, The Annals, translated by A. J. Woodman, 2004; see also Church & Brodribb's translation
  16. ^ Tacitus, The Annals, translated by A. J. Woodman, 2004; see also Church & Brodribb's translation
  17. ^ Dio Cassius, Roman History, Epitome of Book LXI, 33:3c
  18. ^ Harleian Genealogies 16; The Heirs of Caratacus – Caratacus and his relatives in medieval Welsh genealogies
  19. ^ Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae 4.12–16
  20. ^ 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
  21. Satires, 4.126–127
  22. ^ The Mabinogion: "Branwen, daughter of Llyr"
  23. ^ Rachel Bromwich, Trioedd Ynys Prydein, University of Wales Press, 1963; Triads from the Red Book of Hergest and Peniarth MS 54
  24. ^ Iolo Morganwg, Triads of Britain 17, 2, 23, 24, 34, 35, 41, 55, 79, 85, 91
  25. ^ Richard Williams Morgan (1861). St. Paul in Britain; or, The origin of British as opposed to papal Christianity. The Marshall Press. pp. 161. Retrieved 8 August 2012.
  26. ^ This article formerly made reference to a passage of Dio Cassius that described Caratacus as a "barbarian Christian". This derived from a transcription error in the version of the Cary translation of Dio online on the Lacus Curtius website, which has now been corrected to read "barbarian chieftain" as per the print edition (Dio 61.33.3c). See also the Foster translation at Project Gutenberg, which also reads "barbarian chieftain".
  27. ^ Tacitus, Annals 13:32
  28. ^ "We are, indeed, told that history has preserved the names of two British females, Claudia and Pomponia Graecina, both of them Christians, and both living in the first century of our era." Lingard, John, History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, 2nd. ed. Newcastle, Walker, 1810 Vol. I., p1.
  29. ^ Martial, Epigrams, XI:53 (ed. & trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Harvard University Press, 1993)
  30. ^ Martial, Epigrams IV:13
  31. ^ Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici, Antwerp, 1614; Archbishop James Ussher (1637), British Ecclesiastical Antiquities, Oxford; Cardinal Michael Alford (1663), Annales Ecclesiae Britannicae: Regia Fides, Vol 1; Williams, J. (1848), contributor John Abraham, Claudia and Pudens, Herauld
  32. 2 Timothy
    4:21 – "Eubulus saluteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren."
  33. ^ George Jowett, The Drama of the Lost Disciples, Covenant Books, 1961
  34. ^ "Who was King Caractacus?". 17 February 2009.
  35. ISSN 0006-2510
    . Retrieved 10 December 2016 – via Google Books.
  36. ^ Davies, William Llewelyn. "ELLIS, ELLIS OWEN ('Ellis Bryn-coch '; 1813 - 1861), artist". Dictionary of Welsh Biography. National Library of Wales.

Further reading

  • Leonard Cottrell, The Roman Invasion of Britain, Barnes & Noble. New York, 1992
  • Sheppard Frere, Britannia: a History of Roman Britain, Pimlico, 1991

External links

Regnal titles
Preceded by King of the Catuvellauni Roman rule
Legendary titles
Preceded by
Metallanus
King of Scotland
Succeeded by
Corbredus I