Legions of Rome (32 page)

Authors: Stephen Dando-Collins

By the time of the Second Battle of Bedriacum, Caecina had attempted to defect to Vespasian; the 21st Rapax fought without its commander, and lost. The legion’s sound reputation meant that following the Vitellianist surrender at Cremona, Vespasian’s general Primus kept the legion intact in a camp in northern Italy. When Petilius Cerialis, Vespasian’s cousin, was given the task of leading the advance element of an army that would suppress the Civilis Revolt, it was the Rapax he chose to lead to the Rhine.

Despite being four cohorts down and suffering casualties in the war of succession, the outnumbered 21st Rapax proceeded to win battles for Cerialis at Rigodulum on the Moselle river, then at Trier, and was one of the legions that delivered the final major defeat to Civilis at Old Camp late in the summer of
AD
70.

For the next twelve years the legion remained on the Rhine, stationed at Bonna, and receiving new recruits during this period to bring it back up to full strength. In
AD
82 Domitian moved the 21st Rapax up the Rhine to Mogontiacum for his Chattian War the following year, after which the legion remained at Mogontiacum until
AD
92. That year, the legion was called to the Danube to help stem an invasion by an army of mounted Sarmatians.

The exact details of this encounter with the Sarmatians have not come down to us, but it ended with the 21st Rapax being destroyed. Writing during the reign of Domitian—during which the 5th Alaudae Legion was also wiped out—Tacitus was to rage, “One after another, armies were lost in Moesia and Dacia, in Germany and Pannonia, through the rash folly or cowardice of their generals. One after another, experienced officers were defeated in fortified position and captured with all their troops.” [Tac.,
A
, 41]

It seems that in
AD
92 the men of the 21st Rapax Legion, one of Rome’s most celebrated legions only a few decades before, were led off in chains to the mountains beyond the Danube, to a life of slavery. The legion was never reformed.

22ND DEIOTARIANA LEGION

LEGIO XXII DEIOTARIANA

22nd Legion of Deiotarus

ORIGIN OF TITLE:

Formed from the remnants of two legions of King Deiotarus of Armenia Minor, which originally fought for Julius Caesar.

EMBLEM:

Eagle (probably); an emblem used by Deiotarus on his coinage.

BIRTH SIGN:

Not known.

FOUNDATION:

Inherited by Antony from Caesar, retained by Octavian, who gave it the number XXII.

RECRUITMENT AREA:

Originally Armenia Minor.

IMPERIAL POSTINGS:

Alexandria, Judea, Caesarea Mazaka, Elegeia.

BATTLE HONORS:

Trajan’s Parthian campaign, AD 114-116 (probably).

FATE:

Wiped out by the Parthians in Armenia, AD 161.

THE ROCK OF EGYPT SHATTERED IN ARMENIA

Named after the king who raised it, this legion served continuously in Egypt for a century and a half before being wiped out in Armenia by the Parthians early in the reign of Marcus Aurelius
.

In 47
BC
, while Julius Caesar was locked in combat with local forces in Egypt, a Roman army led by one of his deputies, Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, was defeated in a battle at Nicopolis in Armenia Minor by King Pharnaces, ruler of the Bosporan kingdom and son of Mithradates the Great, one of Rome’s greatest adversaries. Fighting in the Nicopolis battle alongside Roman troops were two legions raised locally by the king of Armenia Minor, Deiotarus. Both units, which had been equipped and trained in Roman style, suffered heavy casualties in that battle. However, the remnants survived to combine into a single legion which subsequently fought for Caesar himself when he took on and defeated Pharnaces the following year at Zela in Pontus. It seems that this legion of Deiotarus’ subsequently came into Antony’s army,
and formed the nucleus of the 22nd Deiotariana Legion retained by Octavian and sent to Egypt in 30
BC
.

The legion continued to serve there in Egypt for the next century and a half. It would have taken part in the 23
BC
Roman penetration of Ethiopia, but otherwise had a relatively peaceful career. It is last attested to in Egypt in
AD
99. After that, the legion disappeared, from Egypt and from the historical record, and it is likely that this was the legion known to have been wiped out by the Parthians in Armenia in
AD
161. It was never reformed.

22ND PRIMIGENEIA PIA FIDELIS LEGION

LEGIO XII PRIMIGENEIA-P-F

22nd Loyal and Faithful First-born Legion

ORIGIN OF TITLE:

Named for the goddess Fortuna Primigeneia.

EMBLEM:

Eagle.

BIRTH SIGN:

Capricorn.

FOUNDATION:

AD 39, by Caligula.

RECRUITMENT AREA:

Probably the East.

IMPERIAL POSTINGS:

Mogontiacum, Rome (vexillation), Vetera, Mogontiacum.

BATTLE HONORS:

First Battle of Bedriacum, AD 69.

NOTABLE SECOND-IN-COMMAND:

Publius Aelius Hadrianus, future emperor Hadrian, AD 97.

MAINZ’S LEGION

Like the 15th Primigeneia, raised by Caligula for the British campaign that never took place, this legion served solidly on the Rhine for centuries, only blemishing its record once when it surrendered to Civilis
.

The 22nd Primigeneia had just two permanent bases throughout its career. It was founded by Caligula in
AD
39, probably recruited in the eastern recruiting grounds of the existing 22nd Deiotariana Legion, the eagle emblem of which it also adopted. The 22nd Primigeneia was possibly given its title by the next emperor, Claudius, for Fortuna was his patron deity.

The legion was based at Mogontiacum (Mainz), for the next thirty years, sending troops to Italy to help install their commander-in-chief, Vitellius, as emperor. Those cohorts of the 22nd Primigeneia that remained on the Rhine surrendered to Civilis and his rebels in
AD
70. Vespasian subsequently transferred them down the Rhine to Vetera, where, for their penance, they built a new base to replace the one destroyed by the rebels.

The legion would have been involved in Domitian’s
AD
83 Chattian War east of the Rhine. Ten years later, the unit returned to Mogontiacum, to fill the gap left by
the 21st Rapax, which had been destroyed by the Sarmatians. It was still there, by then in company with the 1st Minervia Legion, at the end of the fourth century, under the command of the Duke of Mainz.

In
AD
402, both legions were summoned to Italy by Stilicho for a last-ditch effort against Alaric and his Visigoth invaders. The legion appears to have never returned to the Rhine frontier, which was finally abandoned by the Roman military shortly after. Stilicho was executed by a jealous emperor in
AD
408. The 22nd Primigeneia probably perished in the battles which preceded the fall of Rome in
AD
410.

30TH ULPIA LEGION