Free The Mammoth Book of King Arthur by Mike Ashley Page A

“chief officer”, rather than king or
ruler, suggests a senior administrative role, such as provincial governor or possibly vicarius.
    It has been suggested that Owain (the British version of the Roman Eugenius), was the same person as the puppet emperor set up by Arbogast in 392. But Zosimus recorded the execution of Eugenius
after the battle of Frigidius in 394, an event he is not likely to have got wrong.
    Through his mother, Owain was a grandson of Eudaf Hen, who could claim descent from Caratacus. Eudaf, the Brythonic version of Octavius, was almost certainly a high-ranking Romano-British
official, who had held command in Gwent in the fourth century. Geoffrey of Monmouth calls him a duke of the Gewisse, and I shall explore what that means in more detail later. According to
tradition, Eudaf married the daughter of the usurper Carausius, which is unlikely, as that would push his lifetime back to the dawn of the fourth century. His own daughter is supposed to have
married the shadowy Carausius II, which may well be how the Carausius connection arose, and places Eudaf more satisfactorily in the middle of the fourth century. He was almost certainly dead by
410, but his power and influence had been strong, and many of the later rulers of southern Britain, including Arthur, would claim descent from him ( see Table 3.1 ).
    Table 3.1 The Arthurian Patriarchs
    So it is possible that, in the decade after 410, the three leading officials in Britain were all based in Britannia Prima: Vitalinus in Wroxeter (though bishop of London),
Ambrosius in Gloucester or Cirencester, and Owain in Caerwent.
    Eudaf’s own sons and grandsons were also active at this time, though not necessarily in Britain. Two of his sons, Cynan and Gadeon, had apparently supported Maximus in his bid for Empire
in the 380s. In reward, Maximus made Cynan leader of the British who settled in Brittany around the end of the fourth century. The earliest known chieftain of Brittany was Cynan Meriadoc, and there
is some confusion between him and Cynan ab Eudaf. Meriadoc is usually assigned dates towards the middle of the fifth century, whereas Cynan ab Eudaf must have been born in the mid fourth century,
and was perhaps in his forties when he fought alongside Maximus.
    Gadeon joined Cynan in Brittany, and the two brothers may have ruled jointly. Almost certainly Cynan was dead by 410, and Gadeon may have been too. His successor Saloman has been accorded the
dates 405–412 for his reign. Gadeon was old enoughto have a daughter, Ystradwel, who allegedly married Coel, and if he had also fought alongside Maximus in the 380s, he
must have been in his sixties by 405. Geoffrey of Monmouth, who frequently gets his facts back to front, reports of animosity between Cynan and Eudaf over the crown of Britain, with Cynan believing
he was the rightful heir. This may mask a real tension that developed between Owain and Cynan.
    Legend remembers Owain as a strong, virile man, who fought the giant Eurnach, with both wielding tree trunks. The same legend records that although Owain defeated Eurnach the giant fell on
Owain, killing him. This may all be fanciful, but at the core it may be a folk memory of Owain struggling against a greater authority whom Owain weakened, but who ultimately defeated him. That
greater authority could well have been Vitalinus, or Vitalinus’s grandson Vortigern, who was also Owain’s brother-in-law, having married Maximus’s daughter Severa. Owain’s
tomb is recorded as being at Beddgelert in Snowdonia, which was near one of Vortigern’s strongholds. There is no further reference to Owain after Vortigern’s rise to power.
    As we have seen, the British gave their military leaders the title wledig. Magnus Maximus, for instance, was Macsen Wledig, and the title was also applied to Ceretic of Strathclyde,
Cunedda of the Manau and Ambrosius the Younger (son of Vitalinus’s rival), who was called Emrys Wledig. There were about a dozen wledigs