Lucius Artorius Castus

Lucius Artorius Castus (fl. mid-late 2nd century AD or early to mid-3rd century AD) was a Roman military commander. A member of the gens Artoria (possibly of Messapic or Etruscan origin), he has been suggested as a potential historical basis for King Arthur.

What is known of Artorius comes from inscriptions on fragments of a sarcophagus, and a memorial plaque, found in Podstrana, on the Dalmatian coast in Croatia. Although the inscriptions cannot be precisely dated, Lucius Artorius Castus probably served in the Roman army some time between the mid-late 2nd century AD or early to mid-3rd century AD.

The sarcophagus inscription, which was broken into two pieces at some point prior to the 19th century and set into the wall of the Church of St Martin in Podstrana Croatia, reads (note that "7" is a rendering of the symbol used by scribes to represent the word centurio; ligatured letters are indicated with underlines):

Manfred Clauss of the Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss-Slaby (EDCS), following the readings and expansions provided in CIL 03, 01919; CIL 03, 08513; CIL 03, 12813; Dessau 2770; IDRE-02, 303, expands the text as:

Hans-Georg Pflaum offered a slightly different expansion:

Anthony Birley translates this as:

*Note that the double -ff- in PRAEFF should be indicative of the plural (often dual), though it might be a scribal error here.

**Birley follows Pflaum's expansion of the text where [duaru]m "of two" is reinstated before Britanicimiarum. Previous editors have preferred to restore the word as alarum "to/for the alae", which may make better sense if duci legg is to be understood as the title dux legionum.

***Birley does not translate the final phrase, [...ex te]st(amento), which (if correct) should be rendered "...according to the terms of (his) will"

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