The tale of King Arthur has inspired centuries: the Round Table, Excalibur, Merlin, and Camelot’s shining halls. Yet the Arthur we know is a creation of medieval romance—myth shaped by poets and courtly ideals. But history whispers of another figure. In the chaos after Rome abandoned Britain, around the 5th–6th century CE, Saxon invaders pressed into the island. Fragmentary sources like the Historia Brittonum describe a leader named Arthur (or Artorius), not a king but a dux bellorum—a war comma