Legions of Rome (11 page)

By the fourth century, the draco, of the appropriate scarlet or purple color, had also been adopted by field commanders as their personal standard. Ammianus tells of how, in
AD
357, Roman general and future emperor Julian, nephew of Constantine the Great, used “the purple dragon standard, fitted to the top of a very long spear and stretching out” behind the standard-bearer as Julian rode to battle. [Amm.,
XVI
, 12, 39]

XII. LEGION EMBLEMS AND BIRTH SIGNS

Caesar’s bulls, and other myths

Every legion and auxiliary unit had its own unique emblem, as did the Praetorian Guard. These emblems appeared on the shields of each soldier. With Roman soldiers all wearing the same uniform and using similar equipment, the only way to distinguish one unit from another was by the emblems on their shields. In the night phase of the Battle of Cremona in
AD
69, two enterprising soldiers from Vespasian’s army took up the shields of dead opponents emblazoned with the emblem of a Vitellianist legion and, thus disguised, were able to make their way unchallenged through enemy ranks on to a causeway, and sabotage a massive catapult being operated by a Vitellian legion. [Tac.,
H
,
III
, 23]

The most frequently used symbols for imperial legions were animals or birds, especially those with religious significance to the Romans, such as the eagle, bull, stork, and lion. Some legions used representations from Greco-Roman mythology—Pegasus, the centaur, Mars’ thunderbolt, and Neptune’s trident.

The Celts used the boar symbol to ward off evil, and the boar appears on Celtic helmet crests and shield decorations. Cisalpine Gaul in northern Italy, which was made a province of Rome in 220
BC
, was populated by Celtic tribes. Even after Rome officially incorporated Cisalpine Gaul into Italy in 42
BC
some Celtic customs lingered. Several legions raised in Italy used the boar as their symbol, the 1st Italica and 20th Valeria Victrix among them. Likewise, the centaur, associated with Thessally in Greece where it is said to have resided, made it a natural emblem for three legions raised in Macedonia and Thrace at the end of the second century—the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Parthica legions.

As mentioned
above
, it has frequently, but erroneously, been written that all legions raised by Julius Caesar carried the bull emblem. It has also been claimed that those which used Capricorn’s sea-goat as an emblem were raised or reorganized by Octavian. Neither assertion is supported by the facts. Of the legions that can be linked to Caesar, the majority actually carried emblems other than the bull. For example, of four legions known to have been raised by Caesar in Italy in 58–56
BC
, the 11th to the 14th, not one used the bull emblem.

Conversely, Keppie notes that at least three of Octavian’s legions which, in his words,
did not
derive from Caesar, did use the bull emblem. [Kepp.,
CVSI
,
N
35, 2.2] Of those legions that did use the bull emblem, none had a numeral higher than
10. Yet Caesar raised many legions which carried numbers higher than 10. In fact, he raised as many as forty legions. Caesar himself never used the bull emblem; his personal motif was the elephant.

In reality, the common denominator linking legions that used the bull emblem was not Caesar, but Spain. As mentioned earlier, Keppie suggests the strong possibility that republican Rome stationed legions numbered up to 10 in Spain for hundreds of years. Legions 5 to 10 seem to have been raised there subsequently.

Even today the bull is a symbol immediately associated with Spain, where bullfighting has ancient roots. Both the Romans and the Carthaginians before them marveled that the native Celtiberean people of Spain had a tradition of fighting bulls; in those ancient contests in Baetica, bulls were given the death blow with a spear or ax. [Bon.,
B&B
]

In both the late Republic and early imperial era, the bull emblem was used by every legion numbered 4 to 10 except one; the 5th Alaudae, which adopted the elephant after Thapsus, may have used the bull prior to that. Only one other legion, the 3rd Gallica, is known to have used the bull emblem. This is possibly because the republican 3rd Legion served under Pompey in Spain between 59 and 49
BC
. The 4th Flavia, which replaced the 4th Macedonica, took the Flavian lion emblem.

It is likewise frequently written that all legions that used the sea-goat emblem of Capricorn were raised by or at least associated with Octavian/Augustus. This is another myth. Legions created long after the reign of Augustus, units such as the 22nd Primigeneia (raised by Caligula), 1st Italica (Nero), 1st Adiutrix and 2nd Adiutrix (Galba/Vittelius/Vespasian), 30th Ulpia (Trajan), and 2nd Italica (Marcus Aurelius), used the Capricorn symbol, but this is because Capricorn was the zodiacal birth sign of the legions in question. All legions displayed the sign linked to the time of their foundation. Capricorn, falling in the midwinter period, when many legions were raised in time for service starting in the upcoming spring, was the most commonly adopted of the twelve birth signs, and seems to have been considered lucky.

It is true that the standards of a number of the legions in Octavian’s standing army from 30
BC
carried the Capricorn emblem as their birth sign. These same legions also carried separate unit emblems. For example, the 2nd Augusta Legion used Pegasus, the flying horse, as its emblem and Capricorn as its birth sign. Both the 4th Macedonica and 4th Scythica legions used the bull emblem and the Capricorn birth sign. The 20th Valeria Victrix used the boar emblem and the Capricorn birth sign. And so on.

Many modern authors have also written that from the second century the thunderbolt symbol was standardized as the emblem of all the legions, but available evidence contradicts this. The thunderbolt assertion has been based on the fact that all the legion and Praetorian Guard shields depicted on Trajan’s Column, which was dedicated in
AD
113, display thunderbolt symbols of one design or another. This is more accidental than historical, for apart from the Praetorian Guard, only four citizen units can be proved to have used the thunderbolt as an emblem during the imperial era—the 11th Claudia, the 12th Fulminata, the 14th Gemina Martia Victrix and the 30th Ulpia legions.

Why, then, does Trajan’s Column show a profusion of thunderbolt shield emblems? It is probable that men of the Praetorian Guard, the only citizen unit stationed at the capital, modeled for the Greek artisans responsible for the images on Trajan’s Column when these were crafted in Rome between
AD
106 and 113. The artisans would have had no idea of Roman military culture, or the corporate nature of legion emblems. They would have crafted the shield emblems being carried by their models. Consequently it is the Praetorian thunderbolt emblem in several differing cohort designs that ended up on
all
the scutums depicted on the column. There is evidence to suggest that each cohort of the Praetorian Guard used a different variant of the thunderbolt emblem. [
See
Creating Trajan’s Column
.]

The Praetorian Guard was one of only a handful of units to use the thunderbolt emblem.

The Notitia Dignitatum of the fifth century depicts the shield designs of a great many legions and auxiliary units; not one used the thunderbolt emblem. It could be expected that, by the time of the Notitia Dignitatum, Christian symbols had replaced the old legion emblems
of pagan Rome, for Christianity had by that time been the official Roman religion for close to a century. Surprisingly, there are very few crosses on Notitia Dignitatum shields, and not one shield used the “XP” [
] Christian symbol that Constantine the Great is said to have had his men paint on their shields. The only identifiably Christian emblem, a pair of angels, appears on the shields of the two bodyguard units of the Eastern (but not the Western) Emperor, the Equites Domestici and the Pedites Domestici, the Household Cavalry and Household Foot. [Berg.,
IND
]

An emblem that did feature on many legion and auxiliary shields in the Notitia Dignitatum was the wheel of the pagan goddess Fortune. Ammianus Marcellinus, writing at the end of the fourth century, pointed out the significance that the wheel of Fortune still held for the Roman military when he described “Fortune’s rapid wheel, which is always interchanging adversity and prosperity,” and associated it with the war goddess Bellona. [Amm.,
XXXI
, 1, 1]

By the fifth century the 5th Macedonia’s bull had been replaced by a rosette. [Berg.,
IND
] The rosette was a martial symbol also associated with war goddess Bellona, and had been used extensively as a decoration on shields and legionary
gravestones from early in the imperial period. It might be argued that the thunderbolt had been discarded because it represented a pagan god, yet, as can be seen from the above, the wheel of Fortune and the rosette, which also represented pagan gods, were in use in Christian times.

By the fifth century, numerous imperial legions had replaced their original emblems. The 3rd Augusta Legion, for example, was using a plain circular design. The two imperial 7th legions had survived; one using a ten-pointed star, another, a nine-spoked wheel of Fortune. The 1st Italica Legion had replaced its boar emblem with a circular motif, while the 2nd Italica was using a four-spoked wheel. Yet the 13th Gemina Legion of the fifth century was still using the lion as its emblem, just as it had done since the reign of Augustus. [Ibid.]

XIII. THE TRIUMPH

For a Roman general, the supreme accolades were the Triumph and the title
imperator
. In republican times the latter was accorded a victorious general by his troops. The emperors took this award for themselves, on a vote of the Senate, for victories in battles where they or their generals had commanded. At the start of all their letters, emperors proudly listed the number of times they had been hailed imperator; it is from this word that the title “emperor” evolved.

Triumphs were awarded by a vote of the Senate for a major victory over foreign enemies. In the Republic, Triumphs could only be celebrated by generals of consular rank. Under the emperors, Triumphs became reserved for members of the imperial family. The Triumph took the form of a procession through the streets of Rome, which were lined by cheering crowds for the occasion, with all the senators of Rome wearing their togas with purple borders as required by Augustan decree.

The general celebrating the Triumph rode in a golden chariot, a
quadriga
, which was kept reverently at a temple, drawn by four white horses and decorated with branches of laurel, the symbol of victory. Revered young general Germanicus Caesar won the hearts of Romans when, on May 26,
AD
17, he took his five young children with him in his quadriga when he celebrated his Triumph for victories in Germany.

The triumphant wore the
ornamenta triumphalia
—triumphal decorations of a wreath of bay leaves (a symbol of purification), a vest decorated with the golden palm motif (a victory symbol), and a gold-embroidered purple cloak. The general
held a laurel branch in one hand. An ivory scepter topped with a golden eagle frequently formed part of the
ornamenta
. In addition, the general was awarded a statue in the Forum, and a large cash prize, with which he was expected to erect a public monument such as a triumphal arch; most surviving Roman arches relate to a Triumph.

The Gate of Triumph, a special gate in Rome’s Servian walls, was only opened to allow the triumphal procession to pass through, and for emperors’ funerals. Trumpet fanfares heralded the approach of the triumphant general. Then came wagons loaded with the spoils from the general’s campaign, followed by elaborate wheeled dioramas, like portable stage sets, illustrating to the public where and how the general had obtained his victory. Behind these came white oxen with gilded horns and other animals to be sacrificed. Prisoners taken during the campaign tramped along in chains, jeered by the crowd. For the Triumph celebrated by Vespasian and Titus in
AD
71 for putting down the Jewish Revolt, 700 Jewish prisoners, “selected out of the rest as being eminently tall and handsome,” were shipped to Rome. [Jos.,
JW
, 7, 5, 3]