Legions of Rome (30 page)

This legion was apparently raised by Caligula for his planned but never executed invasion of Britain. It was named after Fortuna Primigeneia, goddess of Fortune. This was the favorite deity of Claudius, Caligula’s uncle and successor in
AD
41, so it is not impossible that Claudius actually named both this and the 22nd Primigeneia. This legion is likely to have taken the number 15 because it was raised in the traditional recruiting grounds of the existing 15th Legion, the Apollinaris.

Based at Mainz on the Upper Rhine after Caligula’s aborted British operation, by
AD
46 it had moved to Vetera on the Lower Rhine. There, in
AD
69–70, the legion became embroiled in the protracted defense of Vetera, or Old Camp as it was known, with thousands of its men killed by the rebels.

The shattered 15th Primigeneia Legion was abolished by the new emperor Vespasian, once the Civilis Revolt was terminated in the autumn of
AD
70.

16TH GALLICA LEGION

LEGIO XVI GALLICA

16th Legion of Gaul

EMBLEM:

Boar (probably).

BIRTH SIGN:

Probably Capricorn.

FOUNDATION:

In 49 BC, by Julius Caesar.

RECRUITMENT AREA:

Gaul.

IMPERIAL POSTINGS:

The Rhine, Mogontiacum, Novaesium.

ABOLISHED:

AD 70, by Vespasian, for surrendering to Civilis.

PAYING THE PRICE OF DISLOYALTY

Fighting stoutly under Germanicus only to disgrace itself in the Civilis Revolt, a legion that was disbanded by Vespasian, who reformed it as the 16th Flavia, and sent it to the East
.

Raised in Gaul, the 16th Gallica Legion was serving under Drusus Caesar on the Rhine in 16
BC
, where it remained throughout its short career. Based at Mainz, it marched for Drusus’ son Germanicus Caesar in his German campaigns of
AD
14–16.

In the reign of Nero the legion was transferred to Novaesium on the Lower Rhine. There, in January
AD
69, it joined its fellow Rhine legions in hailing Vitellius emperor, and soon after sent several of its cohorts to Italy to help defeat Otho and install Vitellius on the throne.

The remaining 16th Gallica cohorts became caught up in the Civilis Revolt, ultimately deserting their young general Herrenius Gallus, surrendering to the rebels and allowing Gallus to be executed in the spring of
AD
70. For these two crimes, the new emperor Vespasian abolished the legion in that same year. He reformed it as the 16th Flavia Legion.

16TH FLAVIA FIRMA

LEGIO XVI FLAVIA-F

16th Steadfast Flavian Legion

ORIGIN OF TITLE:

Named in honor of first emperor of the Flavian family, Vespasian.

EMBLEM:

Lion.

BIRTH SIGN:

Unknown.

FOUNDATION:

By Vespasian, from vestiges of the disgraced 16th Gallica Legion.

RECRUITMENT AREA:

Unknown.

IMPERIAL POSTINGS:

Satala, Parthia, Samosata, Oescus.

BATTLE HONORS:

Trajan’s Parthian campaign, AD 114-116.

VESPASIAN’S OWN

Formed in
AD
70 to replace the disgraced and abolished 16th Gallica Legion, the 16th Flavia took Vespasian’s family name and the emblem of the lion, which was associated with Vespasian’s favorite deity, Hercules.

With the shameful history of the 16th Gallica to remind it of what it must avoid, the 16th Flavia set off for a new career in the East. Its first permanent base was at Satala in the new province of Cappadocia. From there it joined the emperor Trajan’s
AD
114–116 Parthian campaign, after which, licking its wounds, it moved to a new base in Armenia, Samosata, today’s Samsat in Turkey.

By the reign of Septimius Severus the 16th Flavia had relocated to Syria, where it was still based, at Oescus, late in the fourth century. [Not. Dig.]

17TH, 18TH AND 19TH LEGIONS

LEGIO XVII
LEGIO XVIII
LEGIO XIX

EMBLEM:

Boar (probably).

BIRTH SIGN:

Probably Capricorn.

FOUNDATION:

In 49 BC, by Julius Caesar.

RECRUITMENT AREA:

Italy (probably).

IMPERIAL POSTINGS:

Aquitania, Raetia, Novaesium.

BATTLE HONORS:

Agrippa’s Aquitanian campaign, c. 20 BC.
Tiberius’ Raetian campaign, 15 BC.

WIPED OUT:

Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, AD 9.

THE SHARED FATE OF VARUS’ LOST LEGIONS

Ill-starred legions wiped out with Varus in the Teutoburg Forest in
AD
9 by Arminius and the German tribes. Only the 18th was ever reformed, by Nero, but it performed so badly that it was soon folded into another legion by Vespasian
.

Three legions raised at the same time and in similar recruiting grounds, the 17th, 18th and 19th, served under Drusus and Tiberius in their German campaigns. When Tiberius hurried off to Pannonia to deal with the uprising there and in Dalmatia, he left the trio on the Lower Rhine, under the command of the governor, Quintilius Varus.

In the summer of
AD
9, Varus led all three legions through the homelands of tribes east of the Rhine that had signed peace treaties with Rome. In September, as Varus was leading his army back to the Rhine, he was lured north, to the Teutoburg Forest, where Arminius, a young Cheruscan prince and prefect of Roman auxiliaries, led an ambush by German tribes that wiped out Varus and his three legions, none of which was commanded at the time by either a legate or a senior tribune.

Germanicus Caesar led a series of campaigns in Germany between
AD
14 and 16 in which German tribes were defeated in several battles, but Arminius, or Hermann
as he became known in Germany, evaded both death and capture, although his pregnant wife was taken prisoner by the Romans and his son was born and raised in captivity. Germanicus was able to retrieve two of the lost eagles of Varus’ three legions. The third would be recovered from the Cauchi tribe in Germany in
AD
41 by a Roman army led by Publius Gabinius, who was granted the title Cauchius by the emperor Claudius for the eagle’s return—such was the importance to the Romans of recovered legion eagle standards.

Augustus retired the numbers of the three destroyed legions and never replaced them. But in the reign of Nero, a curious thing happened. Apparently, for one of his planned campaigns in Parthia or Ethiopia, Nero raised a new 18th Legion. Why he gave it the number 18, which must have been considered unlucky by Roman soldiers after what happened to the original 18th in the Teutoburg Forest, is a mystery. In both his
Annals
and
Histories
, Tacitus makes numerous references to this new 18th Legion, which in
AD
69 was one of the four legions of the army of the Upper Rhine.

The new 18th was quick to vow allegiance to Vitellius in January that year, but did not send troops to Italy to overthrow Otho as did all the other legions stationed on the Rhine. This was probably because only six of its cohorts were on the Rhine; the remaining four cohorts were in the East. Tacitus wrote that, along with several cohorts of the 3rd Cyrenaica Legion, troops of the 18th Legion were withdrawn from Alexandria by Titus, for his siege of Jerusalem. [Tac.,
H
,
V
, 1] Josephus also referred to these cohorts from two legions that had been at Alexandria; during the Jerusalem siege they were under of the command of the tribune Eternius Fronto. [Jos.,
JW
, 6, 4, 3]