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The Second Legionary Camp in Palestine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

R. Knox M'Elderry
R. Knox M'Elderry
Affiliation:
Queen's College, Galway
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Extract

Was there a second legion in Palestine at all ? Mommsen has raised a doubt. In his note on C.I.L. iii 6641 ‘M. Iunio Maximo Leg. Augg. Leg. X Fr….’ he says ‘Quo tempore titulus positus est (about 200 A.D.) provinciam Palaestinam una sola legio obtinuerit necesse est X Fretensis; nam Augustorum vocabulum legatis legionis non solet addi nisi simul provinciae praesunt. Legio VI Ferrata quamquam a Dione (lv 23) in Iudaea collocatur, vide ne castra habuerit in Batanaea (quo ducunt milites eius duo Capitoliade oriundi, C.I.L. vi 210 anni 208 et x 532) quae fuit sub legato Syriae Phoenices.’ On C.I.L. iii 6703 similarly he says ‘legatus legionis Augusti vocabulum raro adsumit’ But the title ‘leg. Aug.’ does seem to be used with sufficient frequency of a simple ‘legatus legionis’ to invalidate Mommsen's argument: e.g. Dessau 1026 ‘leg. Aug. leg. xi C. p. f.’; 1036, 1055, 1070, 1141 etc: and the soldiers of Capitolias might just as easily have served across the border in Palestine. Zangemeister, who first published the inscription of Iunius Maximus {Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins x 1887, 49–53) took the same view as Mommsen, that he was the provincial legatus; but later (ib. xi 138) he admitted that in that case the words ‘pro praetore’ would have been added.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , April 1908 , pp. 110 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1908

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References

page 111 note 1 Professor Pelham, in Outlines of Roman History4 (1905) p. 506, says that the Legio XV Apollinaris came to Satala before 98; herein probably following Mommsen in the Berlin Sitzungs-berichte 1903 p. 818 n. 4; for he had previously (Eng. Hist. Rev. 1896 p. 632) given 117 as the date. But Mommsen's view has been rejected by Ritterling, in the Austrian Jahreshefte vii Beiblatt p. 34 n. 30, and by Domaszewski, in Philologus 1907 p. 170, as contradicting ascertained facts. One inscription from Carnuntum in particular may be cited as proof that the legion lay there for the interval between 70 and the Parthian war: C.I.L. iii 11218 = Dessau 2359 ‘D. M. T. Fl. T. f. Pol. Secundus cast., mil. leg. XV Apol. . . . stip. xxil, T. Fl. Ingenus signif. h. f. c’ It is evident from his name that T. Flavius Secundus was born in the camp some time after 70; having served 22 years he must have been about 40 when he died. On the other hand, C.I.L. iii. 25 = Dessau 2612, which records a centurion of the legion appointed ‘ab Optimo imp. Traiano’ to guard the marble quarries at Mons Claudianus in Egypt, affords a strong presumption that the legion was in the East, though not necessarily in Egypt as Boeckh thought, during the last years of Trajan.

page 111 note 2 C.I.L. iii 8261 = Dessau 2733 records a ‘trib. mil. leg. VI Ferr. in Syr.’ who was next ‘praef. coh. I Thrac. Syr. in Moesia.’ As this cohort was probably in Syria up to Trajan's war (C.I.L. iii 600) but is not traceable there later—it is not mentioned in the diploma of 157—we may assume that it went to Moesia in the rearrangement of forces after the war. The inscription therefore is probably our last record of the Legio VI Ferrata in Syria, shortly before its transfer.

page 112 note 1 See Tac. Hist. ii 80 ad. fin. for the legionary camps of Syria as centres of population.

page 112 note 2 Ptol. v 14, 12.

page 112 note 3 It is worth noting that Wesseling (ITin. Antonini, l.c.) gives Cappareae as the name of the Syrian town, following the evidence of four MSS. out of five which he quotes.