A chief of the Catuvellauni, the son of Cunobelinus. He mounted a gallant but unsuccessful guerrilla operation in Wales against the Romans in the years following the Claudian conquest (43). Betrayed by the Brigantian queen, Cartimandua, he was taken to Rome (51), where he was exhibited in triumph, and pardoned by Claudius.
Caratacus (Brythonic *Caratācos, Greek Καράτακος;
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. 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.
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 Ordivician 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.
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.Although the Severn is visible from British Camp, it is nowhere near it, so this battle must have taken place elsewhere.
After his capture, Caratacus was sent to Rome as a war prize, presumably to be killed after a triumphal parade. 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?"
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Preceded by: Togodumnus |
King of the Catuvellauni |
Succeeded by: -- |
Caratacus's name
Caratacus's name appears as both Caratacus and Caractacus in manuscripts of Tacitus, and as Καράτακος and Καρτάκης in manuscrips of Dio.
Legend
Medieval British traditions
Caratacus's memory may have been preserved in medieval British tradition. 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.
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. 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.
Another is Claudia Rufina, a historical British woman known to the poet Martial. 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.
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