Lucius Artorius Castus

The date of Lucius Artorius Castus's floruit

No dates are given in either inscription, making it difficult to offer a precise date for them, no less Lucius Artorius Castus's floruit. The late French epigraphy expert Xavier Loriot suggested that Lucius Artorius Castus's expedition against the Armenians (as he reads the main inscription) could have taken place in 215 AD, under the reign of emperor Caracalla, or perhaps later, in 232 AD, under the reign of Severus Alexander (when P. Aelius Hammonius led a Cappadocian force in Severus’s Persian war). Three Croatian archaeologists examined the inscriptions in 2012, as part of an international conference on Lucius Artorius Castus organized by authors Linda Malcor and John Matthews: Nenad Cambi, Željko Miletić, and Miroslav Glavičić. Cambi proposes that Lucius Artorius Castus' career can be dated to the late 2nd century AD and his death to the late 2nd, or perhaps early 3rd century AD. Glavičić dates Lucius Artorius Castus's military career to the middle- through late-2nd century AD and proposes that he was the first governor of the province of Liburnia, which Glavičić suggests was only established as a separate province from Dalmatia circa 184–185 AD. Miletić dates Lucius Artorius Castus's military career to circa 121–166 AD and his procuratorship of the province of Liburnia to circa 167–174 AD. Cambi, Miletić, and Glavičić all accept the reading (adversus) Armenios, "against the Armenians" (with Cambi offering Armorios [an abbreviation of Armoric[an]os] as an alternate possibility); Miletić places the expedition against the Armenians during emperor Lucius Verus's Armenian and Parthian war of 161–166 AD.

Identification with King Arthur

In 1924, Kemp Malone was the first to suggest the possibility that Lucius Artorius Castus was the inspiration for the figure of Arthur in medieval European literature. More recent champions have included authors C. Scott Littleton and Linda Malcor. As a research consultant for the film King Arthur (2004), Malcor's hypotheses regarding Artorius were the primary inspiration for the screenplay.

The careers of the historical Artorius and the traditional King Arthur do have certain differences. For example, Artorius was not contemporaneous with the Saxon invasions of Britain in the 5th century CE. The possibility, however remote, is nonetheless real that Artorius was remembered in local tales and legends that grew in the retelling. No definitive proof, however, has yet been established that Lucius Artorius Castus was the "real" King Arthur.

Lucius Artorius Castus as King Arthur in modern entertainment

In the film King Arthur (2004), Artorius is partially identified with King Arthur. The film asserts that Arthur's Roman name was "Artorius Castus", and that Artorius was an ancestral name derived from that of a famous leader. His floruit ("prime time") is, however, pushed a few centuries later so that he is made a contemporary of the invading Saxons in the 5th century CE. This would be in agreement with native Welsh tradition regarding Arthur, although his activities are placed many decades earlier than the medieval sources assign to him.

Lucius Artorius Castus is the real name of the character Askeladd in the manga Vinland Saga, who is descended from Arthur himself.

In Rome: Total War: Barbarian Invasion, one of the historical battle scenarios features the Battle of Badon Hill with Lucius Artorius Castus as commander of the Romano-British forces.