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Caratacus

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: British History 1500 and
before (including Roman Britain); Historical figures

   Caratacus ( Brythonic *Caratācos, Greek Καράτακος; variants Latin
   Caractacus, Greek Καρτάκης) 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
   and the legendary British king Arvirargus.

History

   Caratacus is named by Dio Cassius as a son of the Catuvellaunian king
   Cunobelinus. 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, 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 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. Finally, in 51, Scapula managed to
   defeat Caratacus in a set-piece battle somewhere in Ordovician
   territory (see the Battle of Caer Caradoc), 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 one 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:

          [Caratacus] resorted to the ultimate hazard, adopting a place
          for battle so that entry, exit, everything would be unfavorable
          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 defenses.

   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.

   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 speak to 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:

          "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."

   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?"
   Preceded by
   Togodumnus King of the Catuvellauni Succeeded by
                                       --

Caratacus' 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 Brythonic form was *Caratācos, pronounced
   /ka.ra.taː'kos/, which gives the attested names Caradog in Welsh and
   Carthach in Irish.

Legend

Medieval British traditions

   Caratacus's memory may have been preserved in medieval British
   tradition. A genealogy in the Welsh Harleian MS 3859 (ca. 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.

   Caratacus does not appear in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the
   Kings of Britain (1136), although he appears to correspond to
   Arviragus, the younger son of Kymbelinus, who continues to resist the
   Roman invasion after the death of his older brother Guiderius. In Welsh
   versions his name is Gweirydd, son of Cynfelyn, and his brother is
   called Gwydyr; the name Arviragus is taken from a poem by Juvenal.

   Caradog, son of Bran, who appears in medieval Welsh literature, has
   also been identified with Caratacus, although nothing in the medieval
   legend corresponds except his name. He appears in the Mabinogion as a
   son of Bran the Blessed, who 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).
   The Welsh Triads agree that he was Bran's son, and name two sons,
   Cawrdaf and Eudaf.

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 Iolo Morganwg, credits Caradog, on his
   return from imprisonment in Rome, with the introduction of Christianity
   to Britain. Iolo also makes the legendary king Coel a son of Caradog's
   son Cyllen.

   Another tradition, which has remained popular among British Israelites
   and others, makes Caratacus already a Christian before he came to Rome,
   Christianity having been brought to Britain by either Joseph of
   Arimathea or St. Paul, and identifies a number of early Christians as
   his relatives.

   One is Pomponia Graecina, wife of Aulus Plautius, the conqueror of
   Britain, who as Tacitus relates, was accused of following a "foreign
   superstition", generally considered to be Christianity. 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. However, this 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 Claudia Rufina, a historical British woman known to the poet
   Martial. Martial describes Claudia's marriage to a man named Pudens,
   almost certainly Aulus Pudens, an Umbrian centurion and friend of the
   poet who appears regularly in his Epigrams. It has been argued since
   the 17th century that this pair may be the same as the Claudia and
   Pudens mentioned as members of the Roman Christian community in 2
   Timothy in the New Testament. Some go further, claiming that Claudia
   was Caratacus's 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 James Ussher, Caesar Baronius
   and John Hardyng, as well as classical writers like Caesar, Tacitus and
   Juvenal, although his classical cites at least are wildly inaccurate,
   many of his assertions are unsourced, and many of his identifications
   entirely speculative. He also regularly cites St. Paul in Britain, an
   1870 book by R. W. Morgan, and advocates other tenets of British
   Israelism, in particular that the British are descended from the lost
   tribes of Israel.
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