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Some Notes on the Legions Under Augustus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Ronald Syme
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Extract

A papyrus dated to the year 8 B.C. attests the existence of the legion XXII Deiotariana and, indirectly, that of the other legions as well in the series with numbers running from XIII to XXII. It is therefore no longer necessary to say anything about the theory of Mommsen, that eight of them were raised all at once at the time of the Pannonian Revolt, and the other two after the disaster of Varus, or about the milder form in which Hardy served it up. Nobody could now wish to depart very far from the estimate of Emil Ritterling, that Augustus began his Principate with twenty-six or twenty-seven legions, or from that of Mr. Parker, that in 15 B.C. he had twenty-eight. But a general acquiescence does not preclude debate about details which, if they appear small, are never to be despised when they cast light upon imperial principle, or at least practice, and add coherence to a narrative or harmony to a picture.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , 1933 , pp. 14 - 33
Copyright
Copyright ©Ronald Syme 1933. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 BGU iv, 1104; cf. ib., 1108 (of 5 B.C.).

2 Mommsen, Res Cestae 2, pp. 70–76; Hardy, , ‘Did Augustus create eight new legions during the Pannonian Rising of A.D. 6–9?’ JP xxiii, pp. 29–44Google Scholar=Studies in Roman History (i), 1906, pp. 163–180. It was unfortunate that the powerful criticisms of Patsch (Westdeutsche Zeitschr. ix, 1890, p. 332 ff.) were so little heeded.

3 F. Ritterling in P-W, s.v. Legio, cols. 1216–7; Parker, H. M. D., The Roman Legions, 1928, p. 89.Google Scholar

4 Cf. Ritterling, o.c., col. 1217.

5 Suetonian brevity says alias (sc. legiones) instead of aliarum legionum milites: exauctorare is perhaps a word more naturally applicable to the soldier than to his regiment, cf. Tac. Hist. i, 20; Suet. Vesp. 8.

6 De legione Romanorum X Gemina, Leipzig, 1885, pp. 6–7; cf. P-W., col. 1223. Mr. Parker does not discuss the problem.

7 Suet. Aug. 17; Dio 51, 3.

8 Suet. Aug. 24.

9 Suet. lul. 70.

10 Tac. Ann. i, 42.

11 Dio 54, II, 5, provides the date, and it is beyond dispute. Mr. Parker (o.c., p. 86) says that it happened ‘in the Cantabrian War of 25 B.C.’

12 Dio, l.c., τά τε γὰρ ἄλλα καὶ στρατόπεδον ὅλον Αὔγουστον ἐπωνομασμένον ἐκώλυσεν οὕτως ἔτι καλεισθαι.

13 That is to say, it was treated not like the Tenth Legion, but like the ‘other legions’ in Suet. Aug. 24.

14 Cf. Vell. Pat. ii, 112; ILS 2270, and, especially, 2272, L. Antonius L. f. Fab. Quadratus donatus torquibus et armillis ab Ti. Caesare bis, leg. XX.

15 It may be enough to mention as a curiosity the view of Domaszewski, v. (Westdeutsche Zeitschr. xii, 1893Google Scholar, Korrespondenzblatt 145) that it was the other legion, XX, which had received its standards from Tiberius. He appears later to have abandoned this view, cf. Rangordnung, p. 176; and in his Gesch. der r. Kaiser i, p. 178, he states that legio I received its standards from Tiberius in Spain in 25 B.C. But in 25 B.C. Tiberius was only a military tribune.

16 o.c., cols. 1238 and 1376–7. So too Dessau, , Gesch. der. r. Kaiserzeit i, p. 228.Google Scholar

17 o.c., p. 87.

18 Moreover he counts it in his total of the legions in 16 B.C. (o.c., p. 89).

19 E.g., Caesar BC i, 40; Res Gestae 29; Vell. Pat. ii, 112, 4; Tac. Ann. ii, 41; Hist. iii, 18. They often, it is true, for the sake either of completeness or of clearness, use the phrase aquilam et signa. In the Histories, when it was necessary to distinguish between whole legions and mere vexillationes, Tacitus purposely uses aquilam et signa when he means the former (Hist. ii, 29; iii, 21; 31; 50; 52; 60), signa vexillaque to designate the latter (Hist. ii, 18; iii, 63; iv, 15). Mr. Parker, to be sure, adduces Hist. v, 16, ‘illa primum acie secundanos nova signa novamque aquilam dicaturos. Here, however, there was no confusion possible, no contrast to be indicated. The passage merely proves what we already knew, that Cerealis was a speaker who took pleasure in emphasis and iteration. There is no more contrast here than in the ‘Romanae aquilae, Romana signa’ of Pliny (Pan. 82).

20 Suet. Tib. 9.

21 ‘Zur Gesch. des r. Heeres in Gallien unter Augustus,’ BJ 114/5, 1906, p. 175 and P-W., col. 1223. So, too, Dessau, , Gesch. ii, 2, p. 515Google Scholar, n. I. This command falls in the period when Agrippa was in charge of the West. With Suetonius' description of the state of Gaul compare Dio 54, II, I, Ἀγρίππας δέ, ώς τότε ὲς τὴν Ῥώμην ἐκ τῆς Σικελίας πεμϕθεὶς διῴκησε τὰ κατεπείγοντα, ταῖς Γαλατίαις προσετάχθη· ἔν τε γὰρ ἀλλήλοις ἐστασίαζον καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν Κελτῶν ἐκακοῦντο.

22 So far as I am aware, this has not hitherto been suggested. Compare, however, the language in which Frontinus (Strat. iv, 1, 43) refers to the dissolution of a legion by C. Scribonius Curio, ‘nullisque precibus legionis impetrari ab eo potuit ne signa eius summitteret nomenque aboleret, milites autem in supplementum ceterarum legionum distribueret.’

23 The date 17 B.C., given by Julius Obsequens c. 71, is to be preferred. In the narrative of Cassius Dio the incident comes under the year 16 B.C., being included in a resumptive chapter introduced by the words πολλὰ μὲν οὖν καὶ ἄλλα κατὰ τοὺς χρόνους ἐκεἰνους ἐταράχθη. Similarly under A.D. 6 he sums up the wars of at least three years: and the German campaigns of Germanicus, which ended in A.D. 16, are mentioned under A.D. 18.

24 Vell. Pat. ii, 97, I. The date of the disaster was probably 17 B.C.; Augustus did not depart to Gaul till the next year, and it might well be doubted whether this was the reason of his going to Gaul. Velleius has dramatically and artfully compressed events in order to magnify the ‘disaster of Lollius.’ This version has enjoyed a remarkable success: cf. Dio 54, 20, 4, ὁ δὲ δὴ μέγιστος τῶν τότε συμβάντων τοῖς Ῥωμαίοις πολέμων, ὅσπερ που καὶ τὸν Αὔγουστον ἐκ τῆς πόλεως έξήγαγε, πρὸς τοὺς Κελτοὺς ἐγένετο.

25 ‘Die Tierbilder der Signa,’ Arch.-epigr. Mitt. aus Oesterreich-Ungarn, XV, 1892.

26 P-W, cols. 1225 and 1571–2; Parker, o.c., pp. 89, 266, 271.

27 The Jews captured a Roman eagle in A.D. 66 (Suet. Vesp. 4), that of XII Fulminata, but cannot have retained it for long; otherwise Josephus would surely have had occasion to mention it. The subsequent fate of such trophies, when they had been retained for any time, was always a matter of interest (cf. Florus ii, 30, 38; Tac. Ann. i, 60; ii, 25; Dio 60, 8, 7; 68, 9, 3). At Bedriacum it was the loss, not the recovery, of the eagle of XXI Rapax that was worth recording and remembering—‘ne Vitellianis quidem incruentam fuisse victoriam, pulso equite, rapta legionis aquila,’ Tac. Hist. ii, 44.

28 Anth. Pal. vii, 741. Cichorius, however (Römische Studien, pp. 312–313), holds that the recaptured eagle was that of another legion, while that of the Fifth Legion remained with the enemy. ‘Ein Adler, der der V Legion, ist damals ja wirklich verloren gegangen. Aus unserem Gedichte dürfen wir nunmehr schliessen dass auch noch der einer anderen Legion sich bereits in der Hand des Feindes befunden hatte und im letzten Moment noch zurückgewonnen wurde.’ Cichorius, like many another, accepts Velleius without question, and goes even further—‘diese Unglücksschläge haben in Rom offenbar eine gewaltige Panik hervorgerufen und Augustus veranlasst sofort nach dem Kriegsschauplatze zu eilen’ (ib., p. 310). Cf., however, above, p. 17, n. 24.

29 Dio 54, 20, 4–6. Cf. Horace, Odes iv, 14, 51–2.

30 Suet. Aug. 23.

31 Odes iv, 9—written after the ‘disaster.’ Augustus later employed Lollius as comes et rector of Gaius Caesar in the East. Was such an acute judge of character so long deceived?

32 Tac. Ann. iii, 48.

33 Cf. also Vell. Pat. ii, 102, 1–2.

34 E.g. VI Macedonica,=VI Victrix or VI Ferrata (ILS 8862); VII Macedonica=VII (Claudia) (CIL iii, 7386; X, 1711 (=ILS 2695), 4723, 8241); IX Macedonica=IX Hispana (ILS 928); VIII Gallica=VIII Augusta? (CIL iii, 141656); XXII Cyrenaïca=XXII Deiotariana (ILS 2690).

35 Parker, o.c., p. 266, denies that the identification of V Gallica with V Macedonica is ‘probable or even possible.’ Ritterling, however, in a paper which only came to the notice of the present writer after this article was in proof, reconsidered his opinion and stated that V Gallica was probably identical with V Macedonica (‘Münze aus Antiochia Pisidiae,’ Zeitschrift für Numismatik 38, 1928, pp. 56–8).

36 ILS 2237 and 2238; CIL iii, 6828; L'année épigr. 1920, n. 75. For the date of the founding of the colony, cf. Ramsay, , ‘Colonia Caesarea (Pisidian Antioch) in the Augustan Age,’ JRS VI, 1916, esp. pp. 83–88.Google Scholar It would appear that the Roman colony cannot have been founded before the death of Amyntas in 25 B.C. and the annexation of his dominions. (Otherwise Cuntz, O., ‘Legionare des Antonius und Augustus aus dem Orient,’ Jabreshefte XXV, 1929, p. 77Google Scholar: from the absence of the title Augusta he argues that the colony is earlier than 27 B C.)

37 At least not Legions I, V and X: and it is here assumed, though it cannot be proved, that by 27 B.C. Augustus had completed his disbanding of legions and had decided what was to be the minimum total of the army for the future.

38 Ritterling (o.c., cols. 1225 and 1781) suggests this date for the enrolment of XXI Rapax, for men from recently conquered Alpine valleys, without a municipal origin and therefore probably of Latin or even peregrine status, are found to have served in it (CIL v, 4858, 4892, 4902, 4927, 5033). This may well be a true explanation, but it is not certain that these were all original members of the legion, and it could not be proved that XXI Rapax did not exist before that date. Men from the Alpine tribes were recruited shortly after 16 B.C., it is true; for the gravestone of a soldier of Legion XX (coming from the Trumplini) who died near Oescus on the Lower Danube after seventeen years of service must be dated before A.D. 6 (ILS 2270).

39 Mommsen, Res Gestae 2, pp.70–76. There is, it is true, no irresistible evidence for the existence of these legions in the early years of the Principate. Legions with some of these numbers existed in the Triumviral period, cf. an African coin of legio XVI (Cohen I2, p. 89, 186–7); but whether the veteran of this legion at Alexandria Troadis (Rev. épigr. i, 1913, n. 322=L'année épigr. 1914, n. 204) was settled there between 27 and 12 B.C., as Ritterling suggests (o.c., col. 1241), is another question. Uthina, in Africa, was a Colonia Iul[ia ….] Tertiadecim [anorum], ILS 6784. The inscription CIL ii, 22,* of a veteran of legio XX at Emerita is, not unreasonably, held for genuine by Ritterling. He takes it as evidence that veterans had been settled there at some time earlier than the founding of the colony (with veterans of Legions V and X) by Carisius in 25 B.C. (o.c., cols. 1215 and 1769–70).

40 Compare the striking but seldom quoted testimony of a contemporary, ‘quem nunc novum exercitum (sc. decem legiones), si qua externa vis ingruat, hae vires populi Romani, quas vix terrarum capit orbis, contractae in unum haud facile efficiant’ (Livy vii, 25).

41 Cf. Vell. Pat. ii, 119, 2, on the Varian legions (XVII–XIX), ‘exercitus omnium fortissimus, disciplina manu experientiaque bellorum inter Romanos milites princeps.’

42 I am deeply in the debt of Mr. Holroyd, of Brasenose College, who first drew my attention to the true significance of the terms of service and of the dates at which soldiers were dismissed by Augustus. Ritterling (o.c., col. 1239) mentions a ‘Verjüngung’ of the legions, but does not develop the point.

43 See above, p. 15.

44 Res Gestae 16; cf. Dio 54, 23.

45 Res Gestae 16. He spent in this way about four hundred million sesterces. This sum will surely have provided for at least 40,000 men, perhaps 60–70,000. We cannot say how much each man received. The first evidence comes from the year A.D. 5, when the service was raised from 16 to 20 years and the gratuity was fixed at 12,000 sesterces (Dio 55, 23, 1), surely also an increase.

46 In A.D. 5 the soldiers complained (Dio, l.c). It is most improbable that any were dismissed in A.D. 6–14, and we know what happened in A.D. 14—tricena aut quadragena stipendia (Tac. Ann. i, 17) was no great exaggeration.

47 This would be suggested by the words of Dio (54, 25, 5), ὅπως ἐπὶ ῥητοὶς ἐκεῖθεν ἤδη καταλεγόμενοι μηδὲν τούτων γε ἕνεκα νεωτερίζωσιν.

48 v. Domaszewski (Rangordnung, pp. 176–7) places the recruiting of five new legions, XVI–XX, shortly after 16 B.C. This would be far too late: trained troops, not whole legions of recruits, would be needed for the wars of conquest in 15–7 B.C.

49 See below, pp. 29–32.

50 With the exception, of course, of the army of six legions in Macedonia (Appian BC iii, 24, 92). I assume that there were about thirty-three legions in existence at the time of Caesar's death, an estimate close to that of Mommsen and removed from the inflated figures of v. Domaszewski and Ed. Meyer.

51 The hiberna appear to have been abandoned quite often at the beginning of the campaigning season and rebuilt at its close. Compare the evidence from Vetera (Lehner, Hans, Das Römerlager Vetera bei Xanten, 1926, esp. p. 12).Google Scholar

52 The vexillarii of Velleius ii, 110, 6 are detachments left behind by legions in their province.

53 ‘Zur Gesch. des r. Heeres in Gallien unter Augustus,’ BJ 114/5, 1906, pp. 162–3. It is perhaps hardly necessary to mention the peculiar theory of v. Domaszewski (Rangordnung, p. 176) that the armies were either ‘consular’ of four legions or ‘praetorian’ of two. What evidence there is tells strongly against such an assumption.

54 Namely, two in Spain and two in Gaul; one in Syria, Egypt, Illyricum, Macedonia and Africa.

55 Ritterling maintains (P-W, cols. 1218–9) that in 27 B.C. the armies of Illyricum and Macedonia were taken from the proconsuls and placed under imperial legates in charge of military districts on the northern limits of those provinces. But it is difficult to find any trace of these imperial legates. The status of Illyricum is a puzzle (Dio 54, 34, 4 says that ‘Dalmatia’ was transferred to the Princeps in II B.C.). The proconsul of Macedonia had charge of the Macedonian legions until an imperial legate of Moesia took them, over (c. A.D. 4?). The proconsul of Africa, as nobody will dispute, retained a legion until the reign of Caligula.

56 This is true, whatever be the date at which Further Spain was split into imperial Lusitania and senatorial Baetica. The two armies were auto matically reduced from two to one when Asturia-Callaecia was detached from Lusitania and joined to Tarraconensis: and that had probably happened sometime before A.D. 9, when the Spanish legions were further reduced, from four to three in number. The phrase of Tacitus Hispanienses exercitus (Ann. i, 3, referring to A.D. 2) cannot be used as conclusive evidence.

57 Orosius vi, 21, 9; Florus ii, 33, 55.

58 For the evidence about the Spanish legions, cf. Boissevain, De re militari Hisp. prov. aet. imp., 1879, and Ritterling, P-W, cols. 1221–3.

59 Ritterling, however, holds that legio I was abolished and that V Alaudae stayed in Spain until A.D. 9.

60 Ritterling, P-W, col. 1665. There is, however, no definite evidence.

61 Ritterling, BJ 114/5, 1906, p. 166 ff. (two armies each of three legions).

62 Armies and their commanders in Northern Italy and Illyricum in the period 27 B.C.-II B.C. present a collection of problems. Compare, however, P. Silius Nerva, proconsul of Illyricum (ILS 899) active both against Alpine tribes west of Lake Garda and against Pannonians in 16 B.C. (Dio 54, 20, 1–2). The direction of Drusus' road over the Alps, starting at Altinum, to the west of Aquileia, is suggestive, and until the conquest of the Alps had been completed there were surely legions near Aquileia.

63 The accession of strength would be represented by the three legions from Spain (I, V Alaudae and IX Hispana) and XXI Rapax.

64 Reasons which it would take too long to discuss here make A.D. 4 seem a reasonable date for the change, for the appearance, if not of a province of Moesia in the strict sense (cf. Appian Ill. 30), at least of an imperial legate in charge of the ‘army of Macedonia and Thrace,’ who may conveniently and briefly be called governor of Moesia (cf. Dio 55, 29, 3). See also below, p. 28.

65 Suet. Tib. 9 and 14.

66 Cf. Dio 55, 10, 17 (Boissevain), ὅτι Γάιος τὰ στρατόπεδα τὰ πρὸς τῷ Ἴστρῳ εἰρηνικῶς ὲπῄει. And it may have been along with his legion that Velleius, who had been serving as a military tribune in ‘Thrace and Macedonia,’ was transferred to the East (Vell. Pat. ii, 101, 3). Ritterling (P-W, col. 1231) suggests that the legion may have been V Macedonica. Other legions which may at some time have belonged to the eastern armies are VII (Mac.) and VIII Aug.; see below, p. 30.

67 Dio 54, 34, 6; Livy Per. 140; Vell., Pat. ii, 98. Ritterling (P-W, col. 1230) argues that legio VII already belonged to the army of Macedonia. He refers to the inscription from the Chersonnese, Thracian, CIL iii, 7386Google Scholar, which he brings into connection with the operations of Piso in Thrace. But Piso may have brought the legion with him from the East.

68 Compare what happened in the ‘reconquest of Illyricum’ in A.D. 6–9, below, p. 25 ff.

69 See below, p. 31.

70 For the true function of the eastern legions see below, p. 32.

71 Dessau, Despite, Gesch. der r. Kaiserzeit ii, 2, p. 612Google Scholar, n. 4, who says ‘ganze Legionen wird er kaum mit sich geführt haben, die waren für diesen Gebirgskrieg nicht geeignet, doch gewiss ausgewählte Legionare und vor allem leichtes Fussvolk.’ But legions were certainly employed for similar purposes in the mountains of Cantabria; compare especially Dio 54, II, 2–5. For Ramsay's view see below, n. 73.

72 Strabo, p. 671, ἐδὄκει πρὸς ἅπαν τὸ τοιους βασιλεύεσθαι μᾶλλον τοὺς τόπους ἢ ὑπὸ τοῖς Ῥωμαίοις ἡγεμόσιν εἶναι τοῖς ὲπὶ τὰς κρίσεις πεμπομένοις, οἳ μήτ᾿ ἀεὶ παρεῖναι ἔμελλον μήτε μεθ᾿ ὅπλων (referring to Cilicia Tracheia).

73 See Ramsay, , ‘Studies in the Roman Province Galatia: I. The Homanadeis and the Homanadensian War,’ JRS VII (1917)) 229 ff.Google Scholar Ramsay, arguing from ILS 9503, the inscription of C. Caristanius Fronto, suggests that the legion may have been XII Fulminata (pp. 253–5, and JRS XIV (1924), p. 203).

74 This solution of the problem of Quirinius' official position at the time of the Homanadensian War has not hitherto, so far as I am aware, been propounded. It disposes at once of the difficulties, real or imaginary, that Quirinius' position in Galatia and Piso's in Pamphylia, just before him, have presented, and is therefore more acceptable than the view that Quirinius was legate of Syria—or even proconsul of Asia, as Groag has recently suggested (P-W, s.v. Sulpicius Quirinius, col. 832). The union (perhaps temporary) of Galatia and Pamphylia is easy and natural, and recurs again under Nero (so Groag in P-W, s.v. Rutilius Gallicus, col. 1258) and under Galba (Tac. Hist. ii, 9). Compare further Strabo on the imperial provinces (διαιρῶν ἄλλοτε ἄλλως p. 840) and Dio 53, 12, 8, ἐπεὶ τό γε ἀρχαῖον καὶ ἐπὶ πολὺ καὶ σύντρια τὰ ἔθνη ἅμα ἤρχετο. (For a conjecture about another possible consular legate of Galatia-Pamphylia, M. Plautius Silvanus in A.D. 6–7, see below, p. 27, n. 95.)

75 Josephus, Ant. J. xvii, 10, 9Google Scholar; B J ii, 3, I.

76 Strabo, p. 797 and p. 807. Cf. below, p. 31.

77 But the cognomen Cyrenaïca of leg. III, which one inscr. gives to leg. XXII (ILS 2690), would not be sufficient evidence. For the war, cf. Mommsen, Res Gestae2, pp. 170–1; Groag in P-W, s.v. Sulpicius Quirinius, cols. 825–7.

78 Cf. Cagnat, , L'armée romaine d'Afrique 2, 1913, p. IGoogle Scholar, ‘On a peu de détails précis sur les guerres qui marquèrent le règne d'Auguste en Afrique; nous avons pourtant conservé le souvenir de soulèvements parmi les peuplades habitant au sud de la province; ils semblent avoir eu plus d'importance que les historiens ne leur en attribuent.’

79 Not the Gaetuli, as Parker, o.c. p. 91. Cf. the Acta Triumph, and Pliny NH v, 36.

80 Vell. Pat. ii, 116, 2; ILS 120.

81 Vell. Pat. ii, 116, 2; Florus ii, 31; Orosius vi, 21; Dio 55, 28.

82 Compare the inscription from Thugga, ILS 8966, Passieno Rufo tribuno mil. legionis XII Fulminatae, Pass[ieni] Rufi. filio, [Thug]genses pro [ami]citia quae eis [cum] patre est libentes dederunt. The son may have served in the legion when his father was proconsul (about A.D. 3), or, perhaps, a year or two after. This is, of course, not conclusive evidence that the legion was in Africa, but it is evidence that must be admitted. What is to be made of Ritterling's suggestion (o.c., col. 1706, followed by Parker, o.c., p. 269) that XII Fulminata, belonged to the Egyptian army before it was reduced from three to two legions, a suggestion which R. supports with no evidence, even of the slenderest—for there is none ?

83 O.c., col. 1224.

84 Tac. Ann. ii, 46.

85 It would perhaps not have been prudent to take away the three legions from Lower Germany. (The legions which set about invading Bohemia, therefore, are the two from Mainz under Sentius Saturninus, marching eastwards, the two from Raetia, northwards, to join them, and the five with Tiberius, crossing the Danube at Carnuntum.)

86 Cf. Vell. Pat. ii, 112, 2, Valerius Messalinus ‘cum semiplena legione vicesima’: and ii, 110, 6, ‘magnus vexillariorum numerus ad internecionem ea in regione, quae plurimum ab imperatore aberat, caesus.’

87 The same distribution is assumed by Ritterling (o.c. cols. 1234–6) and, with some slight variation, by Parker (o.c., p. 84). Violence is done to the evidence by the views of Mommsen, five in Germany, seven in Illyricum (exclusive of Moesia); of Hardy, six in Germany, six in Illyricum (inclusive of Moesia); of v. Domaszewski, eight in Germany, four in Illyricum.

88 Vell. Pat. ii, 113, I (see below).

89 So Ritterling, o.c., col. 1232. Compare the present writer's remarks on the date of the founding of the camp of Vindonissa (A.D. 9, or shortly after) in JRS xxi (1931), p. 301 (review of Stähelin Die Schweiz in römischer Zeit 2, 1931).

90 Dio 55, 29, 3 and 30, 4.

91 Dio 55, 31, 1–2; Vell. Pat. ii, no, 7; Suet. 25; Macrobius i, II, 32. Parker (o.c., p. 82) dates these levies before the outbreak of the revolt—indeed, before the invasion of Bohemia.

92 Vell. Pat. ii, III, 2. In the next year, that of his quaestorship, he served with Tiberius as a legionary legate (ib. 3 and cf. 113, 3).

93 Mr. Parker, however (o.c., pp. 83–4), has stated that the five legions were summoned by Tiberius before the outbreak of the revolt and reached him before the end of the year A.D. 6. He has been followed without questioning by Holmes, Rice (The Architect of the Roman Empire ii, 1931, p. 109).Google Scholar This view would make it impossible to understand the events of A.D. 6–9, even did it not stand in contradiction of the evidence. The five legions did not arrive at Siscia till the next year, A.D. 7, the year of Velleius' quaestorship in which he served as a legate—compare the passage quoted in the text (ii, 113, 2–3) and ii, III, 2–3, whence it clearly emerges that he had been quaestor-designate in A.D. 6. Moreover, the battle which Caecina and Plautius Silvanus had to fight on their way to Tiberius (Vell. Pat. ii, 112, 4–6) is beyond doubt the same as the battle of the Volcaean Marshes in Dio 55, 32, 3—and is Caecina's second appearance in the neighbourhood of Sirmium (for his first, in A.D. 6, cf. Dio 55, 29, 3).

94 Dio 55, 29, 3, Καικίνας Σεουῆρος ὁ τῆς πλησιοχώρου Μυσίας ἄρχων. See below, p. 28.

95 Groag has argued with power and persuasiveness that the lapis Tiburtinus, ILS 918, refers not to P. Sulpicius Quirinius, but to Piautius Silvanus, M. (‘Prosopographische Beiträge,’ n. 7, Jahreshefte xxi–xxii, 1923–1924).Google Scholar If so, the position which Plautius Silvanus held, or rather had just vacated, when he brought legions from the East to Moesia and Illyricum in A.D. 7, can only be the proconsulate of Asia of A.D. 6–7. But, even if this tempting attribution be rejected, a position ocan still be found for Plautius Silvanus in the East. In A.D. 6 the mountaineers of the Taurus once again gave trouble and a war resulted which Dio thought worth recording (55, 28, 3). This Isaurian War, perhaps a second ‘Homanadensian War’ of A.D. 6–7, may have demanded the attention of Plautius Silvanus and may explain why legions could not be brought from the East to Tiberius until late in the second year of the great revolt. If so, the position of Silvanus will have been like that of Piso and Quirinius, consular legate of Galatia-Pamphylia (see above, p. 24, .n. 74). This would be confirmed, not only by the dedication to him at Attaleia in Pamphylia (Annuario viii–ix, 1925–1926, p. 363Google Scholar, where the editor makes him a praetorian legate of Pamphylia in c. 7–4 B.C.), but also by the occurrence of Silvanus as the name of an eponymous magistrate or priest at Ancyra in Galatia on an inscription of the early Empire (Dittenberger OGIS 533, 1. 50).

96 Vell. Pat. ii, 113, 2–3. In the light of this unimpeachable evidence Mr. Parker's statement (o.c., p. 84) that this army of five legions ‘was concentrated by Tiberius in the winter of A.D. 6–7 with the Illyrican army’ is not very helpful.

97 A duty which some have shunned. Dessau, Gesch. der r. Kaiserzeit i, p. 428 ff.)Google Scholar is able to devote about half a dozen pages to the revolt without saying a word about Plautius Silvanus or the army of five legions which came from Moesia and the East.

98 Dio 55, 34, 6–7 and 56, 12, 2.

99 So, too, Groag, Jahreshefte xxi–xxii, col. 470.

100 Suet. Tib. 16. Parker (o.c., p. 81 and p. 85) interprets Suetonius as meaning that fifteen legions were used against Maroboduus.

101 Appian's statement that Caesar had sent sixteen legions across the Adriatic for his Dacian and Parthian campaigns (BC ii, 110, 460) is to be interpreted similarly. It might well be doubted whether all of them were to be employed on these campaigns: and the number corresponds surely to the total of legions at the time in all the eastern provinces (namely, ten) added to the six in Macedonia, which latter alone perhaps have a claim to be called the ‘field army.’

102 The total is fairly constant, but the change in the relative distribution tells its own tale. After A.D. 9 there were eight on the Rhine, seven in Pannonia. Dalmatia and Moesia; in A.D. 98, six on the Rhine, nine on the Danube.

103 So Ritterling, P-W, col. 1235.

104 Cf. above, p. 23 and p. 26.

105 ‘A garrison at Aliso may account for a sixth (sc. legion),’ Parker, o.c., p. 84. But the sources do not suggest that there was a whole legion at Aliso at the time of the disaster. L. Caedicius, praefectus castrorum at Aliso (Vell. Pat. ii, 120, 2), belongs surely to one of the three Varian legions; for Varus had the other two Praefecti with him (Vell. Pat. ii, 119, 4). Compare the writer in ‘Die Zahl der praefecti castrorum im Heere des Varus,’ Germania xvi, 1932, pp. 109–11.

106 They were probably I and V, if the theory developed above is sound. Ritterling supposes them to have been XIV and XVI. For XIV see below, p. 29, n. 112: of XVI, he would date before A.D. 9 some of the inscriptions it has left at Mainz (o.c., col. 1761), but without reasons that can be called cogent.

107 Vell. Pat. ii, 120, I. It was Lower Germany that was menaced: and to Lower Germany, it might reasonably be deduced, were sent the legions from Mainz, which already had ample experience of warfare against Germans. At any rate, in A.D. 14, I is found with XX at or near Oppidum Ubiorum, V with XXI at Vetera.

108 Ritterling, without any great conviction, suggests that they may have been XIII and XIX (o.c., col. 1226). About XXI a slight indication is afforded by ILS 2689, [S]ex. Pedio Sex. f. An. Lusiano Hirruto, prim. pil. leg. xxi, pra[ef.] Raetis Vindolicis valli[s P]oeninae et levis armatur., etc.; about the other legion there is no evidence at all.

109 O.c., cols. 1238 and 1376–7. Dessau, (Gesch. der r. Kaiserzeit i, p. 445)Google Scholar states, without evidence, that several new legions were now formed.

110 Germanicus speaks to the legions of Lower Germany (I, V, XX, XXI), ‘tune a veneratione Augusti orsus flexit ad victorias triumphosque Tiberii, praecipuis laudibus celebrans quae apud Germanias illis cum legionibus pulcherrima fecisset’ (Ann. i, 34). On Ritterling's showing, none of these legions shared in the German victories of Tiberius; in the present writer's view, two of them did. But this would not be an intelligent or even a permissible way of interpreting a writer like Tacitus.

111 See above, p. 23. It established itself in the tranquil position of Strasbourg.

112 Ritterling (o.c., cols. 1711–2) holds that legio XIII must, in the earlier years of Augustus, have belonged to the army of the Transpadana or to that of Illyricum, later perhaps garrisoning Raetia with XXI (above, p. 28, n. 108). The only evidence available points to Tllyricum, viz., CIL iii, 8438 (Narona) and ILS 2638 (Aquileia). I therefore assume that it was a part of the army of Illyricum until A.D. 9. According to Ritterling, legio XIV may at first have belonged to the Transpadana or Illyricum. (cf. CIL v, 8272), but before long went to the Rhine and was one of the two legions at Mainz in A.D. 9 (o.c., col. 1728). But, in the present state of our evidence, it can be maintained that it was in Illyricum until A.D. 9. The apparently quite early inscription from Nérisles-Bains (in Aquitania), ILS 2263, Sex. Cliternius miles, Aniensis, Cremona, leg. XIIII, aerorum V[IIII], h.s.e. may belong to the time before 13 B.C., when there were legions in the interior of Gaul: if so, the legion was transferred to Illyricum when Gaul, or the Rhine, was reinforced from Spain (by legg. I and V). About legio XX there can hardly be any doubt; cf. Vell. Pat. ii, 112, 2, and especially ILS 2651 (from Burnum, in Dalmatia) and ILS 2270 (found near Oescus, on the lower Danube).

113 Vell. Pat. ii, 117, 1.

114 Cf. Ritterling, o.c., cols. 1665 and 1747–8.

115 Ritterling, o.c., col. 1691, assumes that it belonged to Illyricum from the beginning. Among the early evidence about this legion is the inscription at Poetovio of an elderly veteran, L'année épigr. 1920, n. 63. But this would not prove that Poetovio had been the camp of that legion.

116 Cf. the coins (Eckhel iii, p. 335) bearing the title LEG VIII AUG V MACEDON: this evidence illuminates Strabo, p. 756, δεξαμὲνη δύο τάγματα ἃ ἵδρυσεν Ἀγρίππας. For the date, cf. Eusebius (Schöne), p. 143. Compare further the stone of a veteran of VIII Gallica (=VIII Aug.), CIL iii, 141656: whether Ritterling (o.c., cols. 1643–4) is right in holding that this must be ‘considerably earlier’ than the deduction attested for 14 B.C. is another question. He appears merely to be arguing from the cognomen Gallica.

117 For the cognomen Macedonica, cf. CIL iii, 7386; x, 1711 ( = ILS 2695), 4723, 8241.

118 CIL iii, 6826–7; IGRR iii, 1476 (two men).

119 As against eleven men from Italy and Narbonensis are to be set seventeen from Macedonia and the East (Parker, o.c., p. 275), or rather nineteen, for T. Varius, T.f., Vel., domo Pessinunte (Jahrbuch für Altertumskunde ii, 1908,. p. 110) is to be added, and CIL iii, 1818, mentions two men, not one.

120 O.c., cols. 1230 and 1616. He refers to the early inscription from the Thracian Chersonnesus, CIL iii, 7386. See above, p. 23, n. 67. It may, however, have come from the East with Piso—and have returned thither.

121 Cf. his valuable and illuminating article, ‘Legionare des Antonius und Augustus aus dem Orient,’ Jahreshefte XXV, 1929. See, however, Tarn, W. W., ‘Antony's Legions,’ CQ xxvi, 1932.Google Scholar

122 Ritterling, o.c., cols. 1556–7, suggests that the name was won on the Lower Danube, perhaps at the time of the campaigns of M. Licinius Crassus. The earliest evidence about this legion is the inscription at the Pass of Kazan, ILS 2281, of A.D. 33–4.

123 See above, n. 116.

124 See above, p. 10.

125 CIL ix, 3427. So Ritterling, o.c., cols. 1231–2. He suggests that it was temporarily sent to the East with Gaius Caesar. Cf. above, p. 23, n. 66.

126 For the army brought by Caecina and Plautius Silvanus, see above, p. 27.

127 Ritterling's arrangement for A.D. 6 is:—Illyricum, VIII, IX, XI, XV, XX; Moesia IV, V, VII.

128 For even if (see above, p. 23, n. 67), VII (Mac.) may have been brought to Macedonia by piso c. 12 B.C., it may have returned to the East in I B.C. with Gaius Caesar, if not earlier.

129 See above, p. 24, for the needs of Africa and the East before A.D. 6. If the theory here tentatively put forward is accepted, it follows that in this total of nine legions were included all those six which had duplicate numbers (in the main surely Antonian legions), namely, III Cyrenaïica, III Gallica, IV Scythica, V Macedonica, VI Ferrata, X Fretensis.

130 Whether or not they had first been employed by him in Galatia-Pamphylia in A.D. 6–7: see above, p. 27, n. 95.

131 See above, p. 25, for the suggestion that XII Fulminata may have been in Africa shortly before A.D. 6. Its presence in Africa may have been only temporary. For the military relations between Africa and the East, cf. CIL viii, 18084 (apparently recording the transference of a large number of Syrian soldiers into III Augusta, probably towards the end of Trajan's reign), and the Adlocutio Hadriani (ILS 2487), quod ante annum tertium cohorten et qua[ternos] ex centuriis in supplementum comparum tertianorum dedistis. Note further a detachment from VI Ferrata (then in Palestine) attested in Numidia in A.D. 145, ILS 2479.

132 Strabo, p. 797 and p. 807, mentions a garrison of three legions. On the Coptos inscription, ILS 2483, soldiers from only two legions appear, and this is usually taken to prove the reduction of the garrison, for two auxiliary cohorts have disappeared as well. Ritterling (P-W, col. 1507) and Dessau, (Gesch. der r. Kaiserzeit ii, 2, p. 654)Google Scholar follow Mommsen in dating it to the later years of Augustus or the early part of the reign of Tiberius. Professor Cuntz, however, argued from the names of the soldiers that it must belong to the period 10–1 B.C. (Jahreshefte xxv, 1929, p. 80). If he is right, one could invoke as an explanation the temporary absence of a legion in Galatia-Pamphylia (see above, p. 24). The presence on the list of soldiers from Paphlagonia and from Sebastopolis, however, seems to me to exclude a date earlier than 3 B.C. (Paphlagonia was not annexed and added to Galatia till 6 B.C., Sebastopolis till 3 B.C.).

133 P-W, col. 1235.

134 For Cilicia, cf. Tac. Ann. vi, 41. For a different opinion about the purpose of the eastern armies, see Parker, o.c., pp. 126–8.

135 In 57–62 three legions were transferred to the East, IV Scyth., V Mac, and XV Apollinaris.

136 Suet. Tib. 16.

137 In this matter I do not share Mr. Parker's opinion (o.c., p. 185): it is refuted by Tac. Ann. iv, 4, and by Vell. Pat. ii, 130, 2; compare also Suet. Tib. 48.