Lucio Artorio Casto returns to the Origins - From Illyria to Illyria

Giuseppe Nicolini

May 2020

Abstract

The Gens Artoria, to which Lucio Artorio Casto belonged, seems to have origins in the regions of southern Italy in Puglia
and Campania. It also appears that this Gens Romana came from an ancient Messapian origin, the original inhabitants
of Puglia and Salento. The Messapians in turn seem to have had strong ties with the territory of Illyria, present-day
Dalmatia and probably with Caucasian and Asian nomadic ethnic groups.

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In AD 175, 5500 Sarmatian Knights were sent by the Romans to Britain in the time of Marcus
Aurelius.1 Lucio Artorio Casto, probably of Messapian origin, probably also had a command role
over the British cavalry in a period immediately following the settlement of the Sarmatians in
Britain, and therefore was actually the first, or one of the first, commanders of the "Ala I
Sarmatarum" , which still existed in the late 4th century under the name of “Cuneus Sarmatarum”.

The Messapi (Greek: Μεσσάπιοι, Messápioi; Latin: Messapii) were an Iapygian tribe that in
classical antiquity occupied a territory corresponding to a large part of the current Salento (Puglia-
IT).2 The other two Iapigian tribes, the Peucezi and the Dauni, were instead based respectively in
the center and north of Puglia.

One of the most famous historical figures of the Messapi people was King Artas, who, as you can
see, still has a strong assonance with the word linked to the Gens Artoria.3
Artas (Greek: Ἄρτας; governor 430 - 413 BC) was a king of the Messapians. Artas was a strong ally
of Athens during the Pelopponesian War and led an anti-Spartan campaign against Taras (Taranto).
Artas is also called Artos and in Greek he is known as "Bread-man" ..4
For the Messapi "Artas" was a king's name, perhaps a title, while a Messapian family name was
"Artaias", linguistically equivalent to the Latin "Artorius".5

1 Cassius Dione – Vol. VIII Roman History - Book LXXI - 7..17

2 I Messapi: Atti del trentesimo convegno di studi sulla Magna Grecia, Taranto-Lecce, 4-9 ottobre 1990.
3 The nomen Artorius seems to be of Messapian origin (cfr. Marcella Chelotti, Vincenza Morizio, Marina

Silvestrini, Le epigrafi romane di Canosa, Vol. 1, Edipuglia, Bari 1990, pag. 261, 264; Ciro Santoro, Per la nuova
iscrizione messapica di Oria, in "La Zagaglia", VII, 1965, pag. 271-293; Ciro Santoro, La Nuova Epigrafe Messapica "IM
4. 16, I-III" di Ostuni ed nomi in Art-, in "Ricerche e Studi", 12, 1979, pag. 45-60)
4 Tucidide 7.33
5 A.Trinchese in “Un Dux Bellorum di nome Artu' “di Osvaldo Carigi - 2017

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The Messapi were famous for being valiant knights and horse breeders as Virgil defines them
(equorum domitores). Many cultural connections can be found between the knights of the steppes
and the Messapians, both in the field of art and of uses and customs.
During the conquest campaign of the Spartan prince Cleonimo (300 BC) in Salento it was the
moment in which the Romans were able to notice the already famous military and knightly qualities
of the Messapi.6 The Messapi, strong knights, had also distinguished themselves in the wars of
defense against the Tarantini who tried to expand their territories, inflicting strong defeats on the
troops of Taranto, linked to Sparta.
As Herodotus reminds us (Herodotus - VII, 170):

“… The Messapi…. Founded the other colonies, which the Tarentini tried to destroy long after, but
suffered such a terrible defeat, that there was then the most serious massacre of Greeks of all those
we know; not only of Tarentini, but also of citizens of Reggio: of the latter, who had come to help
the Tarentini forced by Micito son of Chero, 3000 died; then, the losses of the Tarentini were not
even counted ... "

The origin of the Messapi is probably due to migratory flows of probable Illyrian or Aegean-
Anatolian origin which arrived in Puglia at the threshold of the Iron Age around the 9th century
BC.7
Maria Gimbutas, a famous scholar, reports that in the Caves of San Angelo in Ostuni (Brindisi) and
in the Scaloria cave in Manfredonia (Foggia) there are Neolithic stratified deposits that contained
ceramic states typically referring to the Kurgan IV period, therefore linked to the knights of the
steppes , whose materials are now collected at the Taranto museum.8
The Illyrian hypothesis, today the most accepted by scholars, is supported above all by linguistic
considerations.9

Probably, also according to the relevance and DNA studies, the ancient Messapians from the plains
of Pannonia then moved to Illyria, today's Dalmatia, to then cross the Adriatic and settle in Puglia.
But a migration that, starting from the steppes and the Caucasus, came from Anatolia and then from
Greece, from Illyria and finally from Puglia, is not excluded. There are genetic implications for both
migration routes, both of which are plausible, albeit at probably different times.

It is thought that the word Messapi means "people between two seas" because they had settled in the
area south of Puglia, between the Adriatic and the Ionian Seas, and because in their name there is
the presence of the sound "AP", as well as in Iapigi and Apuli, which means "water".

6 Alessandro Faggiani. Ipotesi sull'origine della gens Artoria. , 2015. The Messapi probably constituted an equestrian
class within the military hierarchy.
7 Maggiulli, Sull'origine dei Messapi, 1934; D'Andria, Messapi e Peuceti, 1988; I Messapi, Taranto 1991
8 Maria Gimbutas, Kurgan Origini della cultura Europea, edizioni Medusa 2020, p.64
9 Francisco Villar, Gli Indoeuropei e le origini dell'Europa, 2008, pp. 363-371.

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It should be noted that another people had a similar origin of the word as the Massagesi, another
horse-tamer and inhabitant between the two seas (Caspian and Black Seas).
In Apulia, alongside the Messapi, Peucezi and Dauni, the Poediculi are remembered in central
Puglia, while the Calabri and Sallentini tribes were also settled in Messapia.10

Today we observe every day with what ease it is possible to cross the southern Adriatic and arrive
in Puglia, clearly visible in clear days from Albania, following a path that has remained open over
the centuries and which has led to the formation of alloglot, Croatian, Albanian linguistic islands.
and Greek, along the east coast of the Italian peninsula. The geographical name of Messapia is also
testified to in the Balkan peninsula11, in Illyria from where the Messapians would have come by sea
12
in Italy.
These data could find an early confirmation in the news of Hecateus 13 about the existence of two
cities called Iapigia, one in Italy and the other in Illyria, and testify to the close relations between
the populations of the two shores of the Adriatic.14

Surely Dalmatia was a privileged place for the origin of many Roman Emperors and many political
and military offices of the Empire, especially when towards the end of the Empire the equestrian
origins were privileged and when the cavalry became much more important for effect of higher
travel speed and greater military impact.

With the reform of the army carried out by Gallienus (260-268) the Senate of Rome ended up being
excluded not only substantially, but also officially from the military command, as the emperor
decreed that the legions could also be led by praefecti of rank equestrian (previously the command
of the legions was the monopoly of legates of the senatorial class).

It was not the first time that a member of the Gens Artoria commanded troops of Sarmatian origin,
it had already happened in the past. In fact Marcus Artorius Priscus Vicasius Sabidianus, (possible
father of Lucius Artorius Castus) dated between 80 and 130 AD, Rome, (therefore shortly before
Lucio Artorio Casto) obtained two tribunals. The first as a tribune of the auxiliary troops in Lower
Germany, the second as a tribune of the legion VII Claudia Pia Fidelis at Viminacium in Upper
Moesia; he was therefore prefectus Alae I Pannoniorum in Lower Moesia.
The Roman cavalry wings (Alae) were made up of mostly provincial knights (in the condition of
pilgrims) from indigenous tribes, who aspired, at the end of a service lasting over a couple of
decades, to obtain Roman citizenship. The commander of a Alae, who was originally a native prince

10 Treccani voce Apuli

11 M. Mayer in RE XV, 1931, col. 1170 sgg. s.v. Messapioi
12 Servio, Ad Aeneide, VII, 691.
13 Strab. IX, 2, 13 (C 405).
14 S. Salvi, Le lingue tagliate, Milano 1975

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belonging to the tribe of the auxiliary unit, was later replaced with a praefectus alae (or praefectus
equitum)15

The epigraphic evidence on Ala I Pannoniorum allows us to glimpse some patterns of his
recruitment during his first stay in Illyria. The soldiers of this unit seem to have been enlisted
among the warlike tribes of the Iberian Peninsula and among the indigenous population of southern
Pannonia.16 An enlistment in southern Pannonia included, among the various peoples settled, also a
composition of Sarmati Roxolani cavalry that had been encamped in that region for centuries..17 18

Many Roman emperors were of Illyrian origin, in addition to the emperor-soldiers (Claudius the
Gothic, Aurelian and Marcus Aurelius Probus) there were Gaius Decius, Diocletian, Galerius and
Constantine the Great. Diocletian, when he left power, retired to the palatium, the palace he had
built in Split, Illyria, which took his name from "palatium".19

Therefore, the connection between Salento, Puglia and Dalmatia / Illyria should not be surprising. It
is no coincidence that the stele of Lucio Artorio Casto was found right near Podstrana, in Dalmatia,
a place where he had retired after his military career and perhaps a place of ancient origin of the
Gens Artoria.

Now we can see how a circle has been closed with Lucio Artorio Casto.

 In ancient times the Messapians / Illyrians moved by sea to Puglia and Salento from the
plains of Pannonia, Caucasus and Greece.
 The ancient Roman Gens Artoria originates in Puglia.
 Under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (perhaps also this Emperor of Messapian origins
through Malemnio, the Salento king son of Dasumno, founder of Lecce, whom Marcus
Aurelius considered the progenitor),20 Lucio Artorio Casto was appointed to command
the legions in Britain including the Sarmatian / Iagizi troops sent as auxiliary cavalry
(Numerus) of the Empire in support of the troops stationed on Hadrian's Wall and in
other areas of Britain.
 Lucio Artorio Casto from Britain then returns to Illyria as governor at the end of his
military career

Here we see the circle that is formed. Illyria-Puglia / Campania-Britannia-Illyria.

It is not so coincidental that Lucio Artorio Casto is connected with the Sarmatian cavalry, because
his own Gens probably had ties with the nomads of the steppes in an ancient time, through the
Messapian lineage, of Asian / Caucasian origin, tamers of horses.
Lucius Artorius Castus had served in Dalmatia a region adjacent to Pannonia, the settlement area of
the Sarmatians. The recruitment of the Iazygian mercenaries in the Legio VI Victrix then stationed
in York, Ribchester and Britain was not accidental.

15 K.R. Dixon e P. Southern, The roman cavalry, Londra, 1992

16 Ferjancic, Snezana, The Ala Pannoniorum in the Army of Illyricum, 2016
17 Tacito, Historiae, I, 79; Annales, VI, 34; AE 1980, 760 A.K.
18 Goldsworthy, Roman Warfare, 2000, p.140; P. Holder, Auxiliary Deployment in the Reign of Hadrian, 2003, pp.133-

135.
19 Andrea Bonaveri - Storia dell'Europa.
20 Messapo, founder of Ennio: Enn. ap. Serv. ad Aen.VII, 691; Sil. Ital. Pun. XII, 393 sgg.; Malemnio, king of

Salento, son of Dasumno: Iul. Capitol. Scriptores Historiae Augustae - vita M. Antonini 1,8; Eutropio Breviarium
ab urbe Condita VIII,9,1
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The Sarmatians may have welcomed a commander, of equestrian origin, even probably belonging
to a gens of ancient genesis from the Asian steppes and the Caucasus, who knew their homeland,
possibly aware of their customs and their Iranian language.21

After all, it could have been one of them, taking up traditions and cultures of common ancient roots
originating from the Caucasus and the Asian steppes.

City of Egnazia - Puglia - fresco of a Messapian Cavalryman

21 P.Deligiannis, King Arthur-Arthurian legend And the Saramatians, p. 10