Was King Arthur a real historical figure or merely a mythical hero?Tristan Hughes and Dr. Miles Russell delve into the myth and mystery of King Arthur, exploring the historical figures who may have inspired this legendary character, including Magnus Maximus, Emperor Constantine and Julius Caesar's great rival Cassivellaunus. They reveal the fascinating connections and rich oral traditions that shaped Arthurian legend and ravel the myths, surrounding one of Britain's most legendary figures.Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.The Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here:https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/6FFT7MKTheme music from Motion Array, all other music from Epidemic Sound
Chapter 1: Who is Tristan Hughes and what does he discuss?
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It's The Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and Happy New Year. 2025 is here, and for The Ancients, well, we have some huge treats for you over the next few weeks as we kick off January in style. Watch this space. Now, it is still the holiday season and the Ancients team are just wrapping up their Christmas break.
So today we're bringing back to the fore another of my favourite episodes from the back catalogue. And I had a lot of fun choosing this particular episode because it's all about King Arthur and the real life ancient figures who inspired this legendary King of the Britons. because there was more than one.
As the brilliant Dr. Myles Russell from Bournemouth University explained to me in this interview that I did with him back in early 2021, almost four years ago. Myles has been a regular on the Ancients and on the History Hit YouTube channel since then. We filmed with him about the great Iron Age British hillfort Maiden Castle, and about the mysterious Roman 9th Legion, Legio IX Hispana.
He is a lovely man and a brilliant speaker, talking Romans, Iron Age Britons and King Arthur. You name it, he knows it. What not to love? Enjoy! MUSIC The question of who was the real King Arthur, it's kind of like what happened to the Ninth Legion. It's one of those great mystery questions of history.
It is. I mean, Arthur is such an incredible character. He's a world character, really. You know, he's famous everywhere. And I think his story is one that just keeps getting reinvented for every generation. You know, he's one of those characters from the past where it's now very difficult to disentangle the historical truth from the sort of mythology and the fantasy that's built on it.
But because the story's been enlarged and enlarged and enlarged over time, every generation makes the Arthur that they want. So we see in the last few decades, there's been TV series, there's been films, there's been computer games. It's just building on that mythology. So probably of all characters in the past, King Arthur is probably one of the most famous, really. He's world renowned.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of oral traditions in the context of King Arthur?
And yeah, he's quite a nice chap. He's got compassion. It doesn't appear in the original sources. Basically, he is a murderous sociopath. And that is the same with Alexander. I mean, there's nothing about his story. He's not going eastwards in a missionary zeal to bring his brand of civilization and to benefit society. He's conquering and killing and destroying another civilization. But later on,
The romances are added and they're trying to make him ultimately a more likable person. And that is exactly what's happening with Arthur, because he is a deeply unlikable person when you read his accounts in Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Now, let's go back to Arthur then. Thank you for that tangent. That was very much appreciated. So, I mean, the stories of King Arthur in Geoffrey of Monmouth, many of these stories that are given to Arthur, Miles, they happen to other individuals before him. Yeah.
Exactly. I mean, the interesting thing looking through Geoffrey Monmouth, which you do read it from cover to cover, which I've done many times, it's not something I'd automatically recommend to people because it's not like reading a novel and it's played with names and dates and events. But you see that certain themes do get repeated.
And this is one of the reasons I think that Geoffrey's history, his skill is he's weaving together a series of stories and trying to put them in a chronology that makes sense to him. So we often see stories repeated. like the invasion of Julius Caesar in 54 BC in Britain as a documented event, it appears twice in Geoffrey of Monmouth's account from different perspectives.
And it's almost as if he doesn't realise it's the same event and therefore he separates it out and we get three invasions of Caesar rather than the two that we know about. And 54 BC is repeated. And he does this with individuals. We see someone whose story is very similar to somebody else and their name form is slightly different. It's garbled and it's evidently it's the same person.
But Geoffrey's presented with two rather different accounts. And rather than pushing them together, he treats them as two separate individuals. So when we look at Arthur, you can disentangle. There's at least five individuals which come together. So Arthur is a composite in Geoffrey of Monmouth. His story has already happened to other people.
And these are sort of people who are in some way significant. They've been remembered as heroes in the old psychopathic Elliside. You know, they are prominent warlords of their time. But their stories have undoubtedly been remembered and therefore they are coalescing around Arthur and Geoffrey brings them together to create this sort of composite Celtic superhero.
Composite Celtic superhero. Five key figures from ancient Britain. Miles, let's delve into these five figures now. I want you to go wild with the detail of each of these people. Let's start with the first one. This is someone who I actually think is particularly interesting, particularly because he seems to be very much an influence on Clive Owen for the King Arthur of that in the 2000s.
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