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Notes concerning the Principate of Gaius1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
It is reasonable to suppose that these, the only two legions with the title ‘Primigenia,’ were sister legions. Cassius Dio appears to have thought that they were created by Augustus; for, in his (otherwise accurate) list of the foundation dates of legions which survived to his own day, he mentioned XXII (Mommsen's insertion of δευτέρου ϰαὶ in the text of 55, 23, 6 is a certain one) among the legions of Augustus' army. This cannot be XXII Deiotariana, for it was no longer in existence in Cassius Dio's time, but must be XXII Primigenia. Cassius Dio did not include XV Primigenia in his list because, having been disbanded by Vespasian at the beginning of his principate, it did not qualify for a place in that list. As, however, there is no room for these two legions among the twenty-five Roman legions which existed in A.D. 23, Cassius Dio was evidently in error, and the two legions must be supposed to have been created after that date.
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- Copyright © J. P. V. D. Balsdon 1934. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
References
2 55, 23 f.
3 Tac. Ann. 4, 5Google Scholar.
4 Tac. Hist. 1, 55Google Scholar.
5 P-W, s.v. ‘legio,’ coll. 1759, 1800.
6 SIG 3 805.
7 P-W, s.v. ‘legio,’ coll. 1244–8.
8 The Roman Legions (Oxford, 1928), p. 98Google Scholar.
9 CIL xiii, 11853–6.
10 ‘Zum Germanenkrieg d. J. 39–41 n. Chr.,’ Röm.-Germ. Korrespondenzblatt vi (1913), 1, 1–4Google Scholar, and ‘Das frührömische Lager bei Hofheim i. T.’ (Annalen des Vereins für nassauische Altertumskunde und Geschichtsforschung, Band 40), Wiesbaden, 1913, pp. 81 ff.
11 CIL xiii, 6893.
12 On the first of these dates, see below, p. 17; the second is given, for those who accept Henzen's dating, by an Arval Record (Henzen, AFA p. li).
13 Suet. Galba 6, 3Google Scholar.
14 For the hammered coins from Hofheim, see E. Ritterling, ‘Das frührömische Lager bei Hofheim i. T.’ (Annalen des Vereins für nassauische Altertumskunde und Geschichtsforschung, Band 34 (1904), pp. 26, 27, 32, nn. 58, 59, 142; Band 40 (1913), p. 106, nn. 448–9). The defacement can best be explained as having been made by Roman soldiers at Hofheim soon after the arrival of the news of Gaius' murder: see Ritterling, op. cit. (1913), p. 82.
15 Dio 60, 8, 7.
16 Suet. Galba 7, 1Google Scholar.
17 I am much indebted to Mr. R. Syme for emphasising the importance of this point in conversation with me.
18 59, 22, 1.
19 Gaius 43; Galba 6, 3.
20 Germ. 37, 5; Agr. 13, 4.
21 Gaius 43; Galba 6, 3.
22 Wess. 123 and 350 (Cuntz, , Itineraria Romana, i [Leipzig, 1929], pp. 18Google Scholar and 53). Cuntz's figures for the distance between Milan and Mainz–220 miles and 209 leugae—are here accepted. The Automobile Association calculates the distance between Rome and Mainz by this route as about 950 English ( = c. 1033 Roman) miles. But, particularly in mountainous country, Roman roads took a more direct course than modern ones.
23 59, 20.
24 Gaius 26, 3.
25 Henzen, AFA, p. xlix.
26 See Friedländer, L., Sittengeschichte Roms9, i, 332Google Scholar, and works there quoted. Tiberius, making use of this service in 9 B.C., travelled 200 miles to his brother's deathbed in 24 hours. Cf. MissRamsay, A. M., JRS xv, 67Google Scholar.
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28 Suet. Gaius 43. Cf. Willrich, , Klio iii, 307Google Scholar, n. 1, who, in criticism of Suetonius, points out that the roads may have been watered for the sake of speed as well as because the Emperor wished to march ‘segniter delicateque.’
29 Gaius 46.
30 59, 25, 2 = Xiph. 166, 36 f.
31 3, 6, 51.
32 Agr. 12, 6.
33 Div. Iul. 47.
34 NH 9, 116.
35 Histoire de la Gaule iv (1921), p. 162Google Scholar. Professor R. M. Dawkins has drawn my attention to a similar story of Pseudo-Callisthenes concerning Alexander who in the land of darkness commanded his soldiers to pick up stones which were afterwards found to be jewels !
36 Gaius 46.
37 4, 16. See F. Lammert in P-W, s.v. ‘musculus,’ coll. 796 f. For the marinae beluae of Vegetius, cf. Pliny NH 9, 186Google Scholar. They were guiding fish to whales; but musculus also meant sea mussel. Caesar uses the word in its military sense three times, in BG 7, 84, 1; BC 2, 10; 3, 80, 5.
38 C. Iuli Caesaris Commentarii Rerum in Gallia Gestarum vii, edited by Holmes, T. Rice (Oxford, 1914), p. 356Google Scholar, n. (on 7, 84, 1).
39 The following abbreviations are employed in this note:—AJ, Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews; BJ, Josephus, Bellum Judaicum; Leg., Philo, Legatio ad Gaium.
40 Suet. Gaius 58, 1Google Scholar.
41 BJ 2, 203.
42 Ibid.
43 AJ 18, 287, 302–4; cf. Leg. 254 ff.
44 Gesch. des jüd. Volkes 4 i, pp. 495–507 (A History of the Jewish People in the time of Jesus Christ (Edinburgh, 1898) 1, 2, pp. 90–105).
45 Klio iii, pp. 467–470; cf. p. 410 n.
46 In P-W, s.v. ‘Julius (Caligula),’ col. 409.
47 Leg. 261 ff.
48 59, 24, 1.
49 Leg. 185 ff.
50 AFA, pp. l, li; pace Dessau, H., Geschichte der röm. Kaiserzeit 2, 1, p. 128Google Scholar, n. 3.
51 Compare the similar act of Tiberius in 9 B.C.: Dio 55, 2, 2 (see Fitzler-Seeck, P-W x, col. 361.)
52 Suet. Gaius 47; 49, 2.
53 Leg. 190.
54 Leg. 181 f.
55 Leg. 199 ff.
56 Leg. 207 f.
57 AJ 18, 262.
58 Leg. 221.
59 AJ 18, 262.
60 Leg. 261–333; AJ 18, 289–300.
61 Leg. 333; AJ 18, 300 f.
62 Leg. 351.
63 In Leg. Philo stats that, after arriving in Rome, he had gis fellow Jewish envoys from Alexandria decided to present Gaius with the précis of a longer statement of their grievances and claims which Agrippa had forwarded to Rome πρὸ ὀλίγου. This had evidently been sent in the autumn of A.D.38. Willrich, (Klio iii, p. 410Google Scholar n.) does not think that the phrase πρὸ ὀλίγου could be used to cover as long an interval as two years. Willrich's contention is questionable. The interval, according to the outlined above, was about eighteen months.
64 ILS 8899.
65 contra Flaccum 97.
66 AJ 18, 256.
67 Leg. 185 f.
68 Leg. 181–3.
69 Leg. 185.
70 Leg. 249 ff.
71 Both in BJ ii, 200, and in AJ 18, 272, 284 f., 287.
72 τὸ πᾶν ἔτος αὐχμῷ μεγάλῳ κατεσχημένον, AJ 18, 285.
73 Leg. 204 f.
74 Leg. 204 f.
75 Suet. Gaius 25, 33Google Scholar; AJ 19, 11.
76 Leg. 356.
77 Klio iii, p. 410 n.
78 AJ 18, 272.
79 BJ 2, 200.
80 AJ 18, 262. αὐτόθι χειμάσων.
81 Mentioned by Philo, Leg. 250–3.
82 5, 9.