Legions of Rome (22 page)

Authors: Stephen Dando-Collins

This 5th Legion was subsequently shipped to North Africa to take part in Caesar’s campaign against the republican forces there, and at the Battle of Thapsus on April 6, 46
BC
, the legionaries of the 5th, split over the two wings of Caesar’s army, took on and turned the sixty war elephants of King Juba of Numidia. According to Appian, the men of the 5th had asked to be pitted against the elephants. “As a result, this legion bears elephants on its standards even now.” [App.,
II
, 96]

As for the “Alaudae” background of the legion, two years after the 5th Legion’s participation in the last great battle of the Civil War, Munda, and a year after the murder of Caesar in Rome, Mark Antony was making a play for power in Italy. His troops were ranging the countryside looking for supporters of the “Liberators,” Brutus and Cassius. From late 44
BC
to early 43
BC
, Marcus Cicero, famed orator and author, wrote that troops of Antony’s Praetorian Guard and “the Alaudae Legion” were looking for him, on Antony’s orders. [Cic.,
Phil
., i. 20, v, 12;
XIII
, 3, 37;
Att
.,
XVI
, 8, 2]

Was Cicero referring to the 5th Alaudae Legion? Many modern authors believe so, and suggest that Cicero was merely unfamiliar with the legion’s full name. Yet Cicero was a former consul and general who had led legions in battle and had been voted a Triumph; he had an intimate knowledge of the Roman military. Had the legion that was looking for him been called the 5th Alaudae, Cicero would surely have identified it as such.

Available evidence suggests that in 43
BC
the 5th and the Alaudae were two separate legions. Suetonius wrote that during the Gallic War Caesar raised a legion in Transalpine Gaul “called the Alaudae, Gallic for ‘The Crested Lark,’ which he trained and equipped in Roman style. Later, he made every Alaudae legionary a full citizen.” [Suet.,
I
, 24] Caesar himself only wrote of raising twenty-two cohorts of auxiliaries in Transalpine Gaul. Raising a legion of non-citizens was then illegal. There is no mention of this Alaudae Legion during the Civil War, so perhaps the men of the Alaudae were originally among these auxiliaries, helping to keep the peace in Gaul during the Civil War.

At some point during the years 45
BC
to 30
BC
, the 5th Legion and Alaudae auxiliaries merged to form the 5th Alaudae Legion. The combination of a number and a name in a legion’s title was, prior to this, unheard of. It was only after Caesar’s death that it became widespread.

The general who created this combined legion may have been Ventidius, who provided Antony with several legions; the 5th Alaudae went on to march for Antony. By 30
BC
, the 5th Alaudae was certainly one of the legions retained in Octavian’s standing army, and was posted to Spain, where it served during the 29–19
BC
Cantabrian Wars. By 17
BC
it had been transferred to the Rhine.

In 16
BC
, under the governor of Lower Germany, Marcus Lollius, the 5th Alaudae Legion collided with invading Germans of the Sugambri, Usipetes and Tencteri tribes, west of the Rhine. The three tribes had swept across the river, repulsed a cavalry force sent by Lollius to intercept them, then surprised the 5th Alaudae as Lollius was advancing them. In the fierce fighting that followed, the legion was deprived of its eagle by the Germans. Lollius and the 5th Alaudae’s survivors fell back, but when the Germans heard that Augustus himself was in Gaul and hurrying toward them with a large army, they withdrew across the river, subsequently sealing a peace with the emperor by providing hostages. But the damage had been done to the 5th Alaudae Legion’s reputation; the stain of losing its eagle would remain with it forever.

By
AD
14, the unit was stationed at Vetera with the other three legions of the army of the Lower Rhine, and took part in the victorious battles of Germanicus Caesar’s
AD
14–16 campaigns in Germany. In
AD
28, under the governor of Lower Germany, Lucius Apronius, the 5th Alaudae was victorious in battle in a campaign against the Frisii in which 1,300 auxiliaries died: “The soldiers of the 5th sprang forward, drove back the enemy in a fierce encounter, and saved our cohorts and cavalry.” [Tac.,
A
,
IV
, 73]

The legion remained at Vetera until
AD
69, when some of its cohorts went to Italy for Vitellius. Those that remained at Vetera were savaged in Civilis’ rebellion and the legion was almost exterminated. From
AD
70, the legion probably served in Pannonia and Moesia. In
AD
86, it was almost certainly the legion wiped out in Dacia with Praetorian Prefect Fuscus. It was never again mentioned in Roman records, and never reformed.

5TH MACEDONICA LEGION

LEGIO V MACEDONICA

5th Legion of Macedonia

EMBLEM:

Bull.

BIRTH SIGN:

Not known.

FOUNDATION:

By Octavian, prior to 42 BC

RECRUITMENT AREA:

Initially, probably Spain. Under Nero, it became Moesia.

POSTINGS:

Macedonia, Oescus, Pontus, Armenia, Judea, Jerusalem, Egypt, Oescus, Dacia, Troesmis, Syria, Potaissa, Oescus.

BATTLE HONORS:

Macedonian campaigns, 30 BC–AD 6.
Corbulo’s Second Armenian campaign, AD 62.
Jewish Revolt, AD 66–71.
Trajan’s Second Dacian War, AD 105–106.
Second Jewish Revolt, AD 134–135.
Marcus Aurelius’ Eastern campaign, AD 161–166.

NOTABLE SECOND-IN-COMMAND:

Publius Aelius Hadrianus, future emperor, AD 96.

THE WELL-TRAVELED FIFTH

Gaining its title in Macedonia, fighting in Armenia for Corbulo, it put down the First Jewish Revolt in Judea and besieged Jerusalem, then came back to Europe to serve in Trajan’s Dacian Wars, before marching in the East again under Marcus Aurelius
.

Few imperial legions changed bases as frequently as the 5th Macedonica. Stemming from Octavian’s 5th Legion of the triumviral period, it served in Macedonia from 30
BC
to
AD
6, and seems to have gained its title from service in that turbulent province, quite probably during the same battles that earned the 4th its Scythica title.

The 5th Macedonica was subsequently based in Moesia, at Oescus, today’s Gigen in Hungary. By
AD
62, having just filled its empty ranks with a new enlistment of Moesian recruits, the legion was transferred by Nero’s Palatium to the East, to take part in the next Armenian campaign. [Tac.,
A
,
XV
, 6]

Shipped across the Black Sea from the Danube by Rome’s Pontic Fleet, it was left in Pontus by the commander-in-chief of the Armenian operation, the over-confident Caesennius Paetus, who embarked on the operations with just two legions. After Paetus and his troops were forced by the Parthians to withdraw, the 5th Macedonica was summoned by Domitius Corbulo for his operation in the region, with Corbulo’s impetuous young son-in-law, Vinianus Annius, as its commander.

The legion was subsequently transferred to Alexandria in Egypt. From there it joined Titus for the successful but bloody
AD
70 Siege of Jerusalem, which ended the main phase of the First Jewish Revolt. By
AD
71, the legion was back at Oescus in Moesia. While based there it fared badly attempting to counter a raid by King Decebalus of Dacia, in which the provincial governor was killed. The 5th Macedonica had its revenge in Trajan’s Dacian Wars of
AD
101–106, after which the legion returned to Moesia, to be based at Troesmis, modern-day Turcoaia in Romania.

By the spring of
AD
135, the legion, or a large vexillation from it, had been shipped from Moesia to Palestine for the last stage of the Second Jewish Revolt. It took part in the successful Siege of Bethar, headquarters of resistance leader Shimeon bar-Kokhba, in the spring and summer of that year. [Yadin, 13] Once Bar-Kokhba was eliminated and the revolt quashed, the 5th Macedonica men returned to their home base in Moesia.

Between
AD
161 and 166, the legion took part in Marcus Aurelius’ eastern campaigns. On its return to Europe, the legion was stationed in Dacia, at Potaissa in the mountainous north. In
AD
274, when Dacia was surrendered to the barbarian tribes, the 5th Macedonica was withdrawn south of the Danube, returning to its former station at Oescus.

By the end of the fourth century the legion had been split up. One part was still in Moesia, with its cohorts divided between four different locations as border defense units. Another part of the 5th Macedonica Legion was stationed in Egypt, along with three other legions and a large number of auxiliary units. [Not. Dig.]

6TH FERRATA LEGION